SPEECHES 


STORIES^YARNS 

—  OF  THE— 


i — - 


Anecdotal  Lincoln 

SPEECHES,   STORIES   AND  YARNS  OF 
THE  "IMMORTAL  ABE," 


INCLUDING 


STORIES      OF      LINCOLN'S       EARLY      LIFE,     STORIES     OF 
LINCOLN     AS     A     LAWYER,     PRESIDENTIAL     INCI 
DENTS,    STORIES     OF    THE    WAR,    LINCOLN'S 
LETTERS,       AND       GREAT      SPEECHES^ 
CHRONOLOGICALLY  ARRANGE' 
WITH 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 


BY 


PAUL  SELBY 

Associate  Editor  of  the  Encyclopedia  of  Illinois. 


FULL  Y  ILL  USTRA  TED 


THOMPSON  &  THOMAS, 

CHICAGO. 


.15 

s 


CO.EYRIGHT    XQOO, 

•y  VT,HOMSPSON  &  THOMAS. 

*  ALL '  RIGHTS  RESERVED. 


PREFACE. 

In  presenting  this  volume  to  the  public  the  aim  of 
its  publishers  has  been  to  give  the  reader  in  a  limited 
space  the  most  interesting,  entertaining,  and  concise 
work  ever  published  on  Lincoln. 

The  biography  contained  in  this  work  was  written 
by  the  Hon.  Paul  Selby,  a  personal  friend  of  Lincoln, 
and  for  many  years  Editor  of  the  State  Journal  at 
Springfield,  111.,  Lincoln's  home. 

The  Stories,  Anecdotes,  and  Yarns  of  Lincoln  have 
been  compiled  from  the  most  reliable  sources,  and  are 
herein  presented  in  an  attractive  form. 

The  Great  Speeches  of  Lincoln,  which  cannot  fail  to 
arouse  the  patriotism  of  the  reader,  are  arranged  in 
chronological  order. 


CONTENTS. 

PAQK 

LIFE  OP  LINCOLN 13-44 

CHAPTER   I. 

His  Birth  and  Ancestry — His  Autobiography 13-18 

CHAPTER   II. 

Life  in  Kentucky  and  Indiana 18-31 

CHAPTER   III. 
Removal  to  Illinois—A  second   Flat-boat  Voyage  to  New 

Orleans 21-24 

CHAPTER   IV. 

Enters  Politics— Begins  the  Study  of  Law 24-29 

CHAPTER  V. 
As  a  Lawyer  and  Political  Leader 29-31 

CHAPTER   VI. 
Organization  of  the  Republican  Party 31-34 

CHAPTER   VII. 

House  Divided  against  Itself  Speech — The  Lincoln-Douglas 

Debate  of  1858 34-38 

CHAPTER   VIII. 
Election  to  the  Presidency — Administration — Death 38-44 

STORIES   OF  LINCOLN'S    EARLY    LIFE 45-83 

Abe's  Rebuke 46 

A  Flat-boat  Incident  Illustrating  Lincoln's  Ready  Ingenuity  63 
An  Incident  from   Lincoln's  Experience  on  a  Mississippi 

Flat-boat  ,. 59 

An  Unsuccessful  Venture  as  a  Merchant  in  New  Salem 71 

A  Wrestling  Match 64 

Books  Read  by  Lincoln  in  His  Early  Life 45 

5 


6  CONTENTS. 

Cool  Under  Difficulties 79 

"Honest  Abe"  as  Village  Postmaster 61 

How  Lincoln  Became  a  Captain  in  the  Black  Hawk  War 72 

How  Lincoln  Earned  His  First  Dollar   52 

How  Lincoln  Obtained  the  Name  of  "Honest  Abe" 50 

How  Lincoln  Thrashed  a  Bully  and  Made  a  Life-long  Friend  58 

Incident  in  the  Black  Hawk  War 79 

Lincoln  Applies  for  a  Patent 74 

Lincoln  Carries  a  Drunkard  Eighty  Rods  on  His  Back 51 

Lincoln's  Entrance  into  Public  Life 75 

Lincoln's  Name  Good  for  a  Bed 68 

Lincoln's  Lizard  Story .'....  47 

Lincoln's  Prophecy 57 

Lincoln  the  Tallest  of  the  Long  Nine 74 

No  Vices — Few  Virtues 57 

"Thank  you,  I  Never  Drink" 80 

The  First  Meeting  of  a  Future  President  and  Governor 67 

The  Lincoln-Shields  Duel 80 

Young  Lincoln  Narrowly  Escapes  Death 54 

Young  Lincoln  Pulls  Fodder  Two  Days  for  Damaged  Books..  53 

STORIES  OF  LINCOLN  AS  A  LAWYER  83-135 

"Adam's  Ale,"  Lincoln's  Only  Beverage 125  -*' 

A  Distinction  with  a  Difference  88 

Advice  to  a  Young  Lawyer 90 

A  Noted  Horse  Trade  in  which  Lincoln  Confessed  that  He 

Got  the  Worst  of  It 99  - 

A  Pathetic  Story  of  Lincoln's  Disappointment  in  Failing  to 

Secure  the  Support  of  the  Springfield  Ministry 100 

A  Visit  to  the  Five  Points  of  Industry  in  New  York 129 

Colonel  Baker  Defended  by  Lincoln no 

Considerations  Shown  to  Relatives  99 

Crocodile  and  Negro 115 

Defeated  by  a  Still-Hunt 107 

First  Echoes  from  Chiacgo  Convention  123 

"Hold  On,  Breeze" no 

"Honest  Old  Abe" 133 

How  Lincoln  Invested  His  First  Five  Hundred  Dollars  for 

the  Benefit  of  His  Step-Mother 87 


CONTENTS.  7 

How  Lincoln  Won  the  Nomination  for  Congress 107 

How  Mrs.  Lincoln  Surprised  Her  Husband 98 

"I  Am  Not  Fit  for  the  Presidency" 128 

Incidents  of  Lincoln's  Home  Life 104 

Lincoln  and  Finance , 93 

Lincoln  as  a  Lawyer 91 

Lincoln  Defends  a  Widowed  Pensioner  with  Success 97 

Lincoln  Defends  the  Son  of  an  Old  Friend  Indicted  for 

Murder 94 

Lincoln's  Knowledge  of  Human  Nature 93 

Lincoln's  Last  Interview  with  Douglas  116 

Lincoln  Rescues  a  Pig  from  a  Bad  Predicament 84 

Lincoln,  the  Student 83 

Mr.  Lincoln's  Vision. 123 

"Nothing  to  Wear" 104 

Pen  Picture  of  Lincoln,  and  His  Speech  in  New  York  City...  116 

Remarks  Uttered  by  Lincoln,  1858  119 

Six-Foot-Three  Committee  Man 128 

Slavery 120 

Stanton's  First  Impression  of  Lincoln 126 

That  Stage-coach  Ride 89 

The  House  Divided  Against  Itself 120 

The  Old  Sign,  "Lincoln  and  Herndon" 133 

The  Ugliest  Man  130 

Trent  Affair 119 

"Trusted  Till  Britchen  Broke" 115 

Two  Entertaining  Anecdotes  Illustrating  Lincoln's  Good 

Nature 126 

"Well,  Speed,  I'm  Moved" 83 

"Whole  Hog  Jackson  Man" 113 

INCIDENTS   FROM  THE  PRESIDENTIAL  CAREER 

OF  LINCOLN.. 135-167 

An  Incident  in  Lincoln's  Second  Inauguration 165 

A  Petitioner's  Sudden  Change  of  Mind 151 

Cabinet  Reconstruction , 162 

Death  of  Lincoln's  Favorite  Son..... 159 

General  Fiske's  Story  of  the  "Swearing  Driver"  142 

Hearty  Welcome  of  Dennis  Hanks  at  the  White  House 147 

"He's  All  Right,  but  a  Chronic  Squealer" 163 


8  CONTENTS. 

How  Young  Daniel  Webster  Escapes  a  Flogging,  as  Related 

by  Lincoln 160 

Kindness  of  Heart 166 

Lincoln's  Hair 153 

Lincoln's  Modesty 165 

Lincoln's  Unconventionality  in  Receiving  Old  Friends  at  the 

White  House 140 

"Mother,  He's  Just  the  Same  Old  Abe"  161 

Lincoln's  Great  Love  for  Little  Tad 155 

Mr.  Lincoln's  Tact  152 

"Oh,  Pa,  He  Isn't  Ugly" 153 

Remarkable  Memory  of  Lincoln 141 

Secretary  Stanton's  Uncomplimentary  Opinion 164 

Simplicity 154 

The  Hardest  Trial  of  Lincoln's  Life 156 

The  Inauguration,  March  4,  1861 135 

The  Interviews 148 

The  Presidency  Not  a  Bed  of  Roses 149 

The  President's  Mind  Wandered 144 

The  President  Wields  an  Ax  at  the  Washington  Navy  Yard..  150 

The  Old  Lady  and  the  Pair  of  Stockings 150 

Thorough 152 

"Time  Lost  Don't  Count"  162 

Unhealthy  Group  of  Office  Seekers 150 

STORIES  OF  THE  WAR 168-218 

A  Case  Where  Lincoln  Thought  Shooting  Would  Do  No  Good  1 76 

Advises  an  Angry  Officer 191 

Among  the  Wounded 175 

A  Story  Illustrating  Lincoln's  Impatience  at  McClellan's 

Slow  Movements 190 

A  Touching  Song  Influences  Lincoln  to  Pardon  a  Rebel 

Prisoner 169 

Bailing  Out  the  Potomac  River 182 

Brigadier  Generals  More  Plentiful  than  Horses 202 

Burnside  Safe 199 

Dangers  of  Assassination 217 

Fright  a  Cure  for  Boils 2ou 

"Grant's  Whisky"  the  Right  Kind 199 


CONTENTS.  9 

Hardtack  Wanted,  not  Generals 168 

"Help  Me  Let  This  Hog  Go"  196 

How  Lincoln  Pacified  Disappointed  Office  Seekers 207 

Incident  in  Lincoln's  Last  Speech 218 

"Let  Jeff  Escape,  I  Don't  Want  Him" 213 

"Let  the  Elephant  Escape" 201 

Lincoln  and  Little  Tad 200 

Lincoln  and  Tad 185 

Lincoln  Fulfills  His  Vow 212 

Lincoln  Defends  His  Use  of  the  Word  "Sugar-coated"  in  a 

Public  Document 181 

Lincoln's  Glimpse  of  War 210 

Lincoln's  High  Compliment  to  the  Women  of  America 172 

Lincoln's  Influence  with  the  Administration • 179 

Lincoln's  Last  Afternoon 218 

Lincoln's  Love  of  Soldier  Humor , 191 

Lincoln's  Plan  of  War 172 

Lincoln  Refuses  Pardon  to  a  Slave  Stealer 178 

Lincoln's  Summing  Up  of  McClellan  190 

Lincoln's  Tenderness 206 

"Making  a  Fizzle,  Anyhow" 189 

"Massa  Linkun"  Worshiped  by  the  Negroes 203 

Mr.  Lincoln  as  Historian 186 

Mr.  Lincoln's  Military  Talent 188 

New  Instructions  to  Generals 177 

Righteous  Indignation 171 

Tad,  the  Commissioned  Officer , 186 

That  Savage  Dog 195 

The  Biter  Bit 205 

The  Colored  People's  New  Year's  Reception 214 

The  Colored  People  of  Richmond  Honor  Lincoln 204 

The  Hon.  Frederick  Douglass  Tells  of  an  Interview  with 

Lincoln 183 

The  Little  Drummer  Boy 176 

The  Millionaires  Who  Wanted  a  Gun-boat 173 

The  President  and  Fighting  Joe 187 

The  President  and  the  Monitor 192 

The  President  Making  Generals 168 

The  President  Obeying  Orders 173 


io  CONTENTS. 

The  President  Refuses  to  Sign  Twenty-four  Death  Warrants  174 

The  Son  of  Lincoln  Displays  a  Rebel  Flag 211 

Two  Hundred  and  Fifty  Thousand  Passes  to  Richmond 211 

Whipped  and  Then  Ran  169 

Why  Mr.  Lincoln  Hesitated  before  Signing  the  Emancipa 
tion  Proclamation  188 

MISCELLANEOUS  STORIES  AND   INCIDENTS 219-253 

Autobiography  of  Lincoln  in  a  Single  Paragraph 220 

Concerning  Mr.  Lincoln's  Religious  Views 222 

Death  of  Lincoln's  Mother 221 

Henry  J.  Raymond's  Reminiscences  of  Lincoln , 228 

Important  Letter  from  J.  Wilkes  Booth 232 

Indictment  of  the  Conspirators— Charges  and  Specifications..  245 

Lincoln's  Definition  of  Biography 224 

Lincoln's  Favorite  Poem 225 

Lincoln's  Religion 224 

Lincoln's  Religious  Belief 221 

Reward  Offered  by  Secretary  Stanton 244 

Song  Composed  by  Abraham  Lincoln 219 

Walt  Whitman's  Vivid  Description  of  Lincoln's  Assassination  238 

LINCOLN'S  LETTERS 254-272 

Affectionate  Son 254 

Instructions  to  Major  Robert  Anderson 262 

Letter  to  August  Belmont 264 

Letter  to  Colfax  .  261 

Letter  to  Gen.  Duff  Green  259 

Letter  to  Maj.-Gen.  Hooker 267 

Letter  to  Mrs.  Armstrong 254 

Letter  to  Mrs.  Gurney,  Wife  of  Eminent  English  Preacher, 

of  the  Sdciety  of  Friends 271 

Letter  to  Seward 262 

Lincoln's  First  Letter  of  Acceptance 258 

Lincoln's  Idea  of  the  Slavery  Conflict,  in  1855 255 

Lincoln  Writes  to  His  Step-Mother  : : 255 

Mr.  Lincoln's  First  Public  Letter  after  His  Election 260 

Mr.  Lincoln's  Reply  to  the  Poet  Bryant 259 

Partial  Reply  to  Censure  on  the  Arrest  of  Vallandigham, 

June,  1863 267 


CONTENTS.  it 

Presentation  of  a  Gold  Medal  to  Lieut. -Gen.  Grant  by  Presi 
dent  Lincoln 271 

The  President's  Letter  to  Hon.  Jas.  C.  Conklin,  August  16, 

1863 268 

The  President  on  the  Negro  Question 265 

LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES 273-469 

A  Great  Congressional  Speech  281 

A  Humorous  Speech — Lincoln  in  the  Black  Hawk  War 332 

A  Proclamation 446 

A  Proclamation 448 

A  Proclamation 449 

Douglas's  Seven  Questions — Lincoln's  Position  Defined  on 

the  Questions  of  the  Day 327 

Emancipation  Proclamation 450 

Extracts  Upon  which  Seward  Based  His  "Irrepressible  Con 
flict  Platform"... 447 

First  Speech  after  His  Nomination 415 

First  Talk  after  His  Nomination 422 

Joint  Debate  Between  Mr.  Douglas  and  Mr.  Lincoln 333 

Lincoln's  First  Political  Speech  273 

Lincoln's  First  Inaugural  Address 425 

Lincoln's  First  Speech  in  the  Senatorial   Campaign — The 

House  Divided  Against  Itself  Speech 315 

Lincoln's  Speech  at  Columbus,  Ohio,  Feb.  i3th,  1861 520 

Lincoln's  Speech  at  Indianapolis,  Feb.  i2th,  1861 417 

Lincoln's  Speech  at  Washington,  Feb.  27th,  1861 421 

Lincoln's  Temperance  Speech 298 

Lincoln's  Second  Inaugural  Speech 458 

Mr.  Douglas's  Reply 374 

Mr.  Lincoln's  Reply 350 

National  Bank  vs.  Sub.  Treasury 277 

President  Lincoln's  Adieu  to  Springfield 416 

President  Lincoln's  Last  Speech 462 

Proclamation  by  the  President  420 

Reply  to  the  Committee  from  the  Virginia  Convention,  April 

20,  1861  438 

Response  to  Serenade  from  Marylanders,  Washington,  Nov., 

1864 458 


12  ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Second  Nomination 457 

Speech  Delivered  at  Cincinnati,  Feb.  I2th,  1861 417 

The  Ballot  vs.  the  Bullet 312 

The  Emancipation  Question  in  Missouri 445 

The  Perpetuity  of  Our  Free  Institutions 273 

The  President  to  Lieutenant-General  Grant ...  456 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE 

•'And  Couldn't  Ye  Put  a  Little  Brandy  In  All  Unbeknown 

to  Myself? 313 

Chicago  Wigwam  Where  the  Convention  of  1860  Was  Held ..  137 

Campaign  Badge 131 

Campaign  Badges 121 

Colored  People's  Reception,  New  Year's,  1865 215 

Dinner  Given  to  the  President-elect  at  Harrisburg,  Feb.  22, 

1860 441 

House  in  which  Lincoln  Died,  Washington,  D.  C 239 

Lincoln  and  Son  Tad 157 

Lincoln  as  a  Rail  Splitter •.  55 

Lincoln  Getting  the  Worst  of  a  Horse  Trade 105 

Lincoln's  Early  Home,  Elizabethtown,  Ky 65 

Lincoln's  First  Home  in  Illinois 77 

Lincoln's  Home  in  Springfield  77 

Lincoln  Defending  Armstrong  95 

Lincoln's  Death 242 

Lincoln  Reading  by  a  Pine  Knot 47 

Lincoln  Rescues  a  Pig 85 

Lincoln  Receiving  Dennis  Hanks 145 

Listening,  but  Not  Convinced 383 

Parlor  in  Lincoln's  Home,  Springfield,  111 in 

Reception  Given  by  Lincoln  423 

Second  Inaugural  Address  of  President  Lincoln 459 

State  House  in  Springfield,  111. — Now  Courthouse 117 

The  Fretting  Questions  of  Even  a  Great  War  Seemed  to 

Perish  Until  "Tad"  Had  Completed  His  Romp 197 


Abraham  Lincoln. 


A   BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH. 

I. 

HIS    BIRTH  AND   ANCESTRY. 

A  perennial  charm  attaches  to  the  name  an  cl  memoir 
of  Abraham  Lincoln.  Among  those  who  knew  him 
personally  in  the  intimacy  of  private  life,  his  simplicity 
and  geniality  of  character,  his  intense  humanity,  and 
an  absolute  confidence  in  his  personal  integrity  won 
him  friends;  with  the  nation — including  many  who 
had  been  his  bitterest  political  foes — his  exalted 
patriotism  and  the  part  which  he  played  in  the  preser 
vation  of  his  country  and  the  emancipation  of  a  race 
commanded  respect  and  admiration ;  with  the  world  at 
large,  all  these  characteristics,  and  the  place  which  he 
filled  with  such  unswerving  uprightness,  ability,  and 
success,  during  one  of  the  most  perilous  and  dramatic 
crises  in  all  history,  made  him  the  most  important  and 
conspicuously  historic  figure  of  his  time.  While  the 
lineage  of  such  a  man  may  be  a  matter  of  comparative 
indifference,  in  the  light  of  what  he  accomplished  for 

13 


14  LIFE    OF    LINCOLN. 

his  country  and  mankind,  his  life- history  becomes  of 
the  most  absorbing  interest  not  only  to  his  own 
countrymen,  but  in  all  lands  where  the  virtues  of  per 
sonal  integrity,  unselfish  patriotism  and  far-reaching- 
political  sagacity  are  appreciated  and  held  in  proper 
esteem — a  fact  attested  by  the  avidity  with  which  each 
new  volume  dealing  with  his  public  or  private  career, 
and  every  incident,  event,  or  anecdote  connected  with 
his  life,  is  caught  up  and  absorbed  by  those  of  whom  he 
was  accustomed  to  speak  as  "the  plain  common 
people. " 

There  could  be  no  more  appropriate  place  than  this 
to  introduce  what  Mr.  Lincoln  himself  had  to  say  of 
his  own  and  his  family  history,  in  a  letter  to  his  friend, 
the'  Hon.'  Jesse  W.  Fell,  of  Bloomington,  111.,  under 
date  of "  December  20,  1859 — the  year  preceding  his 
election  io  the  Presidency,  and  about  the  time  his 
friends  were  beginning  to  think  seriously  of  his  nomi 
nation  for  that  office.  He  then  said: 


HIS     AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

"I  was  born,  February  12,  1809,  in  Hardin  County, 
Kentucky.  My  parents  were  both  born  in  Virginia,  of 
undistinguished  families — second  families,  perhaps  I 
should  say.  My  mother,  who  died  in  my  tenth  year, 
was  of  a  family  of  the  name  of  Hanks,  some  of  whom 
now  reside  in  Adams  and  others  in  Macon  County, 
Illinois.  My  paternal  grandfather,  Abraham  Lincoln, 
emigrated  from  Rockingham  County,  Virginia,  to  Ken- 
tuck}'',  about  1781  or  1782,  where,  a  year  or  two  later, 
he  was  killed  by  Indians,  not  in  battle,  but  by  stealth, 
when  he  was  laboring  to  open  a  farm  in  the  forest. 


LIFE   OF   LINCOLN.  15 

His  ancestors,  who  were  Quakers,  went  to  Virginia 
from  Berks  County,  Pennsylvania.  An  effort  to 
identify  them  with  the  New  England  family  of 
the  same  name  ended  in  nothing  more  than  a  simi 
larity  of  Christian  names  in  both  families,  such  as 
Enoch,  Levi,  Mordecai,  Solomon,  Abraham,  and  the 
like. 

"My  father,  at  the  death  of  his  father,  was  but  six 
years  of  age,  and  he  grew  up  literally  without  educa 
tion.  He  removed  from  Kentucky  to  what  is  now 
Spencer  County,  Indiana,  in  my  eighth  year.  We 
reached  our  new  home  about  the  time  the  State  came 
into  the  Union  (1816).  It  was  a  wild  region,  with 
many  bears  and  other  wild  animals  still  in  the  woods. 
There  I  grew  up.  There  were  some  schools,  so-called, 
but  no  qualification  was  ever  required  of  a  teacher 
beyond  'readin',  writin',  and  cipherin'  '  to  the  Rule 
of  Three.  If  a  straggler,  supposed  to  understand 
Latin,  happened  to  sojourn  in  the  neighborhood,  he 
was  looked  upon  as  a  wizard.  There  was  absolutely 
nothing  to  excite  ambition  for  education.  Of  course, 
when  I  came  of  age,  I  did  not  know  much.  Still, 
somehow,  I  could  read,  write,  and  cipher  to  the  Rule 
of  Three,  but  that  was  all.  I  have  not  been  to  school 
since.  The  little  advance  I  now  have  upon  this  store 
of  education  I  have  picked  up  from  time  to  time  under 
the  pressure  of  necessity. 

"I  was  raised  to  farm-work,  which  I  continued  until 
I  was  twenty-two.  At  twenty-one  I  came  to  Illinois 
and  passed  the  first  year  in  Macon  County.  Then  I 
got  to  New  Salem,  at  that  time  in  Sangamon,  now  in 
Menard  County,  where  I  remained  a  year  as  a  sort  of 
clerk  in  a  store.  Then  came  the  Black  Hawk  War, 


16  LIFE    OF    LINCOLN. 

and  I  was  elected  a  captain  of  volunteers — a  success 
which  gave  me  more  pleasure  than  any  I  have  had 
since.  I  went  through  the  campaign,  was  elated,  ran 
for  the  Legislature  in  the  same  year  (1832),  and  was 
beaten — the  only  time  I  have  ever  been  beaten  by  the 
people.  The  next,  and  three  succeeding  biennial  elec 
tions,  I  was  elected  to  the  Legislature.  I  was  not  a 
candidate  afterwards.  During  this  legislative  period, 
I  had  studied  law  and  removed  to  Springfield  to  prac 
tice  it.  In  1846  I  was  once  elected  to  the  lower  House 
of  Congress,  but  was  not  a  candidate  for  re-election. 
From  1849  to  1854,  both  inclusive,  practiced  law  more 
assiduously  than  ever  before.  Always  a  Whig  in  pol 
itics,  and  generally  on  the  Whig  electoral  ticket  mak 
ing  active  canvasses.  I  was  losing  interest  in  politics 
when  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  aroused 
me  again.  What  I  have  done  since  then  is  pretty  well 
known. 

"If  any  personal  description  of  me  is  thought  desir 
able,  it  may  be  said,  I  am,  in  height,  six  feet  four 
inches,  nearly;  lean  in  flesh,  weighing,  on  an  average, 
one  hundred  and  eighty  pounds;  dark  complexion, 
with  coarse  black  hair,  and  gray  eyes.  .No  othei 
marks  or  brands  recollected. 

"Yours  truly, 

"A.  LINCOLN." 


Soon  after  his  nomination  for  the  Presidency  in  1860, 
Mr.  Lincoln  wrote  out  a  somewhat  more  elaborate 
sketch  of  his  life  for  the  use  of  his  friends  in  preparing 
a  campaign  biography  for  the  canvass  of  that  year,  but 
it  contained  little  or  nothing  in  reference  to  his  early 


LIFE   OF   LINCOLN.  17 

life  in  addition  to  what  is  supplied,  with  such  char 
acteristic  modesty  and  frankness,  mingled  with  quaint 
humor  in  its  closing  paragraph,  in  the  sketch  just 
quoted.  It  would  be  difficult  to  comprise  within 
smaller  space  what  was  then  known  of  his  genealogy 
and  early  life.  As  he  himself  said,  "My  early  life  is 
characterized  in  a  single  line  of  Gray's  Elegy:  'The 
short  and  simple  annals  of  the  poor.'  "  Yet  subse 
quent  research  seems  to  have  settled  the  fact  beyond  a 
doubt,  that  Abraham  Lincoln  belonged  to  a  historic 
family  of  which  Samuel  Lincoln,  who  came  from  Eng 
land  about  1637,  settling  first  at  Salem  and  afterwards 
at  Hingham,  Mass.,  was  the  American  progenitor. 
To  the  same  source  has  been  traced  the  ancestry  of 
Gen.  Benjamin  Lincoln,  of  Revolutionary  fame,  who 
received  the  sword  of  Lord  Cornwallis  at  Yorktown  in 
1781;  two  early  Governors  of  Massachusetts  (both 
named  Levi  Lincoln) ;  Gov.  Enoch  Lincoln  of  Maine, 
besides  others  of  national  reputation.  Mordecai  Lin 
coln,  the  son  of  Samuel,  lived  and  died  in  Scituate, 
near  Hingham,  Mass.;  Mordecai  II.,  his  son,  emi 
grated  first  to  New  Jersey  and  then  to  what  after 
wards  became  Berks  County,  Pennsylvania,  as  early  as 
1720  to  1725.  John,  his  son,  removed  to  Rockingham 
County,  Virginia,  in  1758;  his  son  Abraham,  the 
father  of  Thomas  (who  was  the  father  of  the  subject  of 
this  sketch),  settled  in  Kentucky  about  1781  or  1782, 
where  he  was  killed  by  Indians  in  1784,  leaving 
Thomas,  the  father  of  the  future  President,  a  child  of 
the  age  of  six  years.  This  will  account  for  the  hard 
ships  which  the  family  of  Thomas  Lincoln  endured  in 
that  frontier  region,  in  the  latter  part  of  the  last  and 
the  beginning  of  the  present  century,  and  the  modesty 


i8  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

of  the  surroundings  amid  which  Abraham  Lincoln  was 
born. 


II. 

LIFE  IN  KENTUCKY  AND  INDIANA. 

Miss  Tarbell,  in  her  "  Early  Life  of  Abraham  Lin 
coln,"  has  presented  conclusive  documentary  proofs  of 
the  marriage  of  Thomas  Lincoln  and  Nancy  Hanks  in 
Washington  County,  Kentucky,  June  12,  1806.  Born 
the  second  child  of  this  marriage  (a  younger  brother 
died  in  infancy),  his  early  life  was,  undoubtedly,  sim 
ilar  to  that  of  other  children  of  that  region  and  period. 
There  is  reason  to  believe  that  there  has  been  a  dispo 
sition  on  the  part  of  two  classes  of  writers  to  exag 
gerate  the  picture  of  the  squalor  and  wretchedness 
about  the  early  Lincoln  home — on  the  one  hand,  by 
those  who  had  an  object  in  seeking  to  magnify  the 
popular  impression  regarding  the  meanness  of  his 
origin;  on  the  other  hand,  by  those  who  sought  to 
elevate  him  in  public  estimation  by' contrasting  the 
modesty  of  his  early  beginnings  with  the  exalted  posi 
tion  to  which  he  finally  attained.  While  the  former  is 
unjust  to  his  memory,  the  latter  is  unnecessary  to  a 
true  estimate  of  his  character.  As  a  rule,  the  pioneers 
of  Kentucky,  as  in  other  portions  of  the  West,  at  that 
time,  and  even  at  a  later  date,  usually  lived  in  a  log- 
cabin  of  one  room  but  scantily  furnished.  Those  who 
had  two  or  more  rooms  were  considered  fortunate,  if 
not  absolutely  wealthy.  At  that  time  Abraham's 
father  lived  in  what  is  now  La  Rue  (then  a  part  of 


LIFE   OF   LINCOLN.  19 

Hardin)  County.  Here  Abraham  spent  his  childhood 
until  he  had  passed  his  seventh  year.  He  went  to 
school  a  little,  but  the  total  could  not  have  been  over  a 
few  months.  Few  stories  are  told  of  his  life  in  Ken 
tucky,  because,  by  the  time  he  had  achieved  a  national 
reputation,  there  were  few  associates  of  his  early  child 
hood  to  tell  them, 

When  Abraham  was  in  his  eighth  year  (1816),  his 
father  removed  with  his  family  to  what  is  now  Spencer 
County,  Indiana.  Here  there  is  reason  to  believe  their 
mode  of  life  was  ruder  even  than  it  was  in  Kentucky, 
as  the  country  was  newer  and  they  settled  in  an 
unbroken  forest.  Mr.  Lincoln  himself  says,  in  the 
paper  already  referred  to  as  having  been  prepared  as 
the  basis  for  a  campaign  biography,  in  1860,  that  "this 
removal  was  partly  on  account  of  slavery,  but  chiefly 
on  account  of  the  difficulty  in  land-titles  in  Kentucky." 
For  a  time  the  family  are  said  to  have  lived  in  a  sort 
of  camp  or  cabin  built  of  logs  on  three  sides  and  open 
at  one  end,  which  served  as  both  door  and  windows. 
A  story  told  by  Lincoln  himself  about  his  life  here 
gives  his  first,  if  not  his  only,  experience  as  a  hunter. 
"A  few  days  before  the  completion  of  his  eighth  year, 
in  the  absence  of  his  father,  a  flock  of  wild  turkeys 
approached  the  new  log-cabin,  and  Abraham,  with  a 
rifle  gun,  standing  inside,  shot  through  a  crack  and 
killed  one  of  them.  He  has  never  since  pulled  a  trigget 
on  any  larger  game.'1 

Another  story  connected  with  his  life  in  Indiana  is 
that  told  by  Austin  Gollaher,  a  school-  and  play-mate 
of  Abraham's — though  somewhat  older — who  claims  to 
have  rescued  the  future  President  from  drowning  iu 
consequence  of  his  falling  into  a  stream  which  they 


20  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

were  crossing  on  a  log,  while  hunting  partridges  near 
Gollaher's  home.  The  same  claim  of  having  saved 
Lincoln's  life  has  been  set  up  by  Dennis  Hanks,  both 
presumably  referring  to  the  same  event.  In  his  own 
sketches,  Mr.  Lincoln  makes  no  reference  to  this  inci 
dent,  though  there  is  believed  to  have  been  some  basis 
of  truth  in  the  story,  as  told  so  graphically  and  circum 
stantially  by  Gollaher. 

Here  Abraham  again  went  to  school  for  a  short  time, 
but,  according  to  his  own  statement,  "the  aggregate  of 
all  his  schooling  did  not  amount  to  one  year.''  Accord 
ing  to  the  statement  of  his  friend  Gollaher,  he  "was  an 
unusually  bright  boy  at  school,  and  made  splendid 
progress  in  his  studies.  Indeed,  he  learned  faster 
than  any  one  of  his  schoolmates.  Though  so  young, 
he  studied  very  hard.  He  would  get  spice-wood 
brushes,  hack  them  up  on  a  log,  and  burn  them  two  or 
three  together,  for  the  purpose  of  giving  light  by  which 
he  might  pursue  his  studies."  An  ax  was  early  put  into 
his  hands,  and  he  soon  became  an  important  factor  in 
clearing  away  the  forest  about  the  Lincoln  home.  Two 
years  after  the  arrival  in  Indiana,  Abraham's  mother 
died,  and  a  little  over  a  year  later  his  father  married 
Mrs.  Sarah  Johnston,  whom  he  had  known  in  Kentucky. 
Her  advent  brought  many  improvements  into  the 
Lincoln  home,  as  she  possessed  some  property  and  was 
a  woman  of  strong  character.  Between  her  and  her 
step-son  sprang  up  a  warm  friendship  which  lasted 
through  life.  His  devotion  to  her  illustrated  one  of  the 
strong  points  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  character. 

In  1826,  at  the  age  of  seventeen  years,  Mr.  Lincoln 
spent  several  months  as  a  ferryman  at  the  mouth  of 
Anderson  Creek,  where  it  enters  the  Ohio.  According 


LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  21 

to  a  story  told  by  him  to  Mr.  Seward  in  Washington, 
after  he  became  President,  it  was  here  he  earned  his 
first  dollar  by  taking  two  travelers,  with  their  bag 
gage,  to  a  passing  steamer  in  the  Ohio.  It  was  here, 
too,  probably,  that  he  acquired  that  taste  for  river  life 
which  led,  at  the  age  of  nineteen,  to  his  taking  his  first 
trip  to  New  Orleans  as  a  hired  hand  on  board  a  flat- 
boat  loaded  with  produce,  belonging  to  a  Mr.  Gentry, 
a  business  man  of  Gentryville,  Ind.,  for  which  he 
received  eight  dollars  per  month  and  his  passage  home 
again.  An  almost  tragic  incident  connected  with  this 
trip,  told  by  Mr.  Lincoln  himself,  was  an  attack  made 
upon  the  boat  and  its  crew  by  seven  negroes  for  the 
purpose  of  robbery,  and  possibly  murder,  one  night 
while  the  boat  was  tied  to  the  shore  along  "the  coast" 
on  the  lower  Mississippi.  The  intended  robbers  were 
beaten  off,  but  not  until  some  of  the  crew  had  been 
wounded  in  the  assault. 


III. 


REMOVAL  TO  ILLINOIS— A  SECOND  FLATBOAT 
VOYAGE  TO  NEW  ORLEANS. 

In  March,  1830,  Abraham  Lincoln  —  having  just 
reached  his  majority — removed  with  his  father's  family 
to  Illinois,  thus  becoming  identified  with  the  State  to 
which  his  name  has  given  such  luster.  This  removal 
was  brought  about  largely  through  the  influence  of 
John  Hanks,  who  had  married  one  of  Abraham's  step 
sisters,  and  had  preceded  the  family  to  Illinois  by  two 
years.  The  first  location  was  made  on  the  banks  of 


22  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

the  Sangamon  River,  near  the  present  village  of 
Harristown,  in  the  western  part  of  Macon  County. 
Here  he  set  to  work  assisting  his  father  to  build  their 
first  home  in  Illinois  and  open  a  farm,  splitting  some 
of  the  rails  which  aroused  so  much  enthusiasm  when 
exhibited  in  the  State  Convention  at  Decatur,  which 
preceded  his  nomination  for  the  Presidency  in  1860. 
A  year  later  we  find  him  engaging  himself,  in  con 
junction  with  John  Hanks  and  one  or  two  others,  to 
build  a  flatboat,  on  the  Sangamon  River  near  Spring 
field,  for  Daniel  Offutt,  which  he  accompanied  to  New 
Orleans  with  a  load  of  produce.  During  a  stay  of  one 
month  in  the  "Crescent  City,"  he  had  his  first  oppor 
tunity  of  seeing  the  horrible  side  of  the  institution  of 
slavery,  and  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  he  then 
became  imbued  with  those  sentiments  which  bore  such 
vast  results  for  the  country  and  a  race  a  generation 
later.  According  to  the  testimony  of  his  friend  Hern- 
don,  "he  saw  'negroes  in  chains  —  whipped  and 
scourged.'  Against  this  inhumanity  his  sense  of  right 
and  justice  rebelled,  and  his  mind  and  conscience  were 
awakened  to  a  realization  of  what  he  had  often  heard 
and  read.  No  doubt,  as  one  of  his  companions  has 
said,  'Slavery  ran  the  iron  into  him  then  and  there.' 
One  morning,  in  their  rambles  over  the  city,  they 
passed  a  slave  auction.  A  vigorous  and  comely 
mulatto  girl  was  being  sold.  She  underwent  a 
thorough  examination  at  the  hands  of  the  bidders  ; 
they  pinched  her  flesh  and  made  her  trot  up  and  down 
the  room  like  a  horse  to  show  how  she  moved,  as  the 
auctioneer  said,  that  <  bidders  might  satisfy  themselves  ' 
whether  the  article  they  were  offering  to  buy  was 
sound  or  not.  The  whole  thing  was  so  revolting  that 


LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  23 

Lincoln  moved  away  from  the  scene  with  a  deep  feel 
ing  of  'unconquerable  hate.'  Bidding  his  companions 

follow  him,  he  said  :  ' Boys,  let's  get  away  from 

this.  If  ever  I  get  a  chance  to  hit  that  thing*  (mean 
ing  slavery),  'I'll  hit  it  hard.'"  Mr.  Herndon  says 
this  incident  was  not  only  furnished  to  him  by  John 
Hanks,  but  that  he  heard  Mr.  Lincoln  refer  to  it  him 
self. 

After  his  return  from  New  Orleans,  he  entered  the 
service  of  Offutt  as  clerk  in  a  store  at  New  Salem,  then 
in  Sangarnon  County,  but  now  in  the  county  of 
Menard,  a  few  miles  from  Petersburg.  While  thus 
employed,  he  began  in  earnest  the  work  of  trying  to 
educate  himself,  using  a  borrowed  "  Kirkham's  Gram 
mar"  and  other  books,  under  the  guidance  of  Mentor 
Graham,  the  village  school-teacher.  Later,  with 
Graham's  assistance,  he  studied  surveying  in  order  to 
fit  himself  for  the  position  of  a  deputy  to  the  County 
Surveyor.  How  well  he  applied  himself  to  the  study 
of  the  English  language  is  evidenced  by  the  clearness 
and  accuracy  with  which  he  was  accustomed  to  express 
himself,  in  after  years,  on  great  national  and  inter 
national  questions — as  he  had  no  opportunity  of  study 
in  the  schools  after  coming  to  Illinois. 

The  year  after  locating  at  New  Salem  came  the 
Black  Hawk  War,  when  he  enlisted  and  was  elected 
captain  of  his  company — a  result  of  which,  previous  to 
his  election  to  the  Presidency,  he  said,  he  had  not 
since  had  any  success  in  life  which  gave  him  so  much 
satisfaction.  His  company  having  been  disbanded, 
he  again  enlisted  as  a  private  under  Captain  Elijah 
lies.  He  remained  in  the  service  three  months,  but 
participated  in  no  battle. 


24  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

The  early  part  of  this  year  was  made  memorable  in 
the  history  of  Central  Illinois  by  the  arrival  of  the 
steamer  "Talisman"  from  Cincinnati,  in  the  Sangamon 
River,  which  it  ascended  to  the  vicinity  of  Springfield. 
The  event  produced  the  wildest  enthusiasm  through 
that  region,  as  it  was  the  first  steamer  to  attempt  the 
ascent  of  that  stream,  and  was  regarded  as  demonstrat 
ing  its  navigability.  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Rowan  Herndon 
piloted  the  vessel  out  of  the  river,  and  it  never 
attempted  a  second  trip,  nor  has  any  other  tried  the 
experiment. 

After  returning  from  the  Black  Hawk  War,  Mr.  Lin 
coln  made  his  first  entry  into  business  for  himself  as 
the  partner  of  one  Berry  in  the  purchase  of  a  stock  of 
goods,  to  which  they  added  two  others  by  buying  out 
local  dealers  on  credit.  To  this,  for  a  time,  he  added 
the  office  of  Postmaster.  In  less  than  a  year,  they 
sold  out  their  store  on  credit  to  other  parties,  who 
failed  and  absconded,  leaving  a  burden  of  debt  on 
Lincoln's  shoulders  which  lasted  until  his  retirement 
from  Congress  in  1849. 

It  was  during  his  stay  at  New  Salem  that  occured 
the  romance  connecting  the  names  of  Lincoln  and  the 
amiable  but  short-lived  Anne  Rutledge,  destined  to 
end  in  her  early  death,  which  has  furnished  so  touch 
ing  a  theme  for  his  biographers. 


IV.      . 
ENTERS  POLITICS-BEGINS  THE  STUDY  OF  LAW. 

The  year  of  the  Black  Hawk  War  (1832)  saw  Lin 
coln's  entrance  into  politics  as  a  candidate  for  Repre- 


LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  25 

sensative  in  the  General  Assembly  from  Sangainon 
County,  in  opposition  to  Col.  E.  D.  Taylor,  who  after 
wards  became  Receiver  of  Public  Moneys  at  Chicago 
by  appointment  of  President  Jackson,  and  died  there 
in  1891,  at  the  age  of  nearly  ninety  years.  Taylor  was 
elected,  Lincoln  then  sustaining  the  only  defeat  of  his 
life  as  a  candidate  for  office  directly  at  the  hands  of 
the  people.  He  took  a  just  and  natural  pride  in  the 
fact  that,  although  he  was  an  avowed  supporter  of 
Henry  Clay,  and  General  Jackson,  a  few  months  later, 
carried  the  New  Salem  precinct  by  a  majority  of  115 
votes,  he  received  277  out  of  the  284  votes  cast  at  his 
home  precinct  at  the  earlier  election. 

Lincoln  was  then  in  his  twenty-fourth  year,  uncouth 
in  dress  and  unpolished  in  manners,  but  with  a  basis 
of  sound  sense  and  sterling  honesty  which  commanded 
the  respect  and  confidence  of  all  who  knew  him.  He 
also  had  a  fund  of  humor  and  drollery,  which,  in  spite 
of  a  melancholy  temperament,  found  expression  in 
sallies  of  wit  and  the  relation  of  amusing  stories,  and 
led  him  to  enter  with  spirit  into  any  sort  of  amusement 
or  practical  jokes  so  customary  at  that  time;  yet  those 
who  knew  him  best  say  that  he  "never  drank  intoxi 
cating  liquors,"  nor  "even,  in  those  days,  did  he 
smoke  or  chew  tobacco." 

After  his  disastrous  experience  as  a  merchant  at  New 
Salem,  and  a  period  of  service  as  Deputy  County  Sur 
veyor,  in  1834  he  again  became  a  candidate  for  the 
Legislature  and'was  elected.  During  the  succeeding 
session  at  Vandalia,  he  was  thrown  much  into  the 
company  of  his  colleague,  Maj.  John  T.  Stuart,  whose 
acquaintance  he  had  made  during  the  Black  Hawk 
War,  and  through  whose  advice,  and  the  offer  of 


26  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

books,  he  was  induced  to  enter  upon  the  study  of  law. 
Again,  in  1836,  he  was  re-elected  to  the  Legislature. 
His  growing  popularity  was  indicated  by  the  fact  that, 
at  this  election,  he  received  the  highest  vote  cast  for 
any  candidate  on  the  legislative  ticket  from  Sangamon 
County.  In  the  Legislature  chosen  at  this  time, 
Sangamon  County  was  represented  by  the  famous 
"Long  Nine" — two  being  members  of  the  Senate  and 
Seven  of  the  House — of  whom  Lincoln  was  the  tallest. 
This  Legislature  was  made  memorable  in  State  history 
by  the  fact  that  it  was  the  one  which  passed  the  act 
removing  the  State  capital  from  Vandalia  to  Spring- 
fiield,  and  set  on  foot  the  ill-fated  <  'internal  improve 
ment  scheme/'  in  both  of  which  Lincoln  bore  a 
prominent  part,  but  the  last  of  which  he  lived  to  regret 
on  account  of  the  burdensome  debt  which  it  imposed 
upon  the  State  without  beneficial  results.  It  was  also 
conspicuous  for  the  large  number  of  its  members  who 
afterwards  became  distinguished  in  state  or  national 
history.  Among  them  we  find  such  names  as  Edward 
D.  Baker,  afterwards  Congressman  from  the  Spring 
field  and  Galena  districts,  United  States  Senator  from 
Oregon,  and  killed  at  Ball's  Bluff  during  the  Civil 
War ;  Orville  H.  Browning,  who  became  United  States 
Senator  and  Attorney-General  of  the  United  States ; 
four  others — Stephen  A.  Douglas,  James  Semple, 
James  Shields,  and  William  A  Richardson — became 
United  States  Senators;  four — John  J.  Hardin,  John 
A.  McClernand,  William  A.  Richardson,  and  Robert 
Smith — occupied  seats  in  the  lower  House  of  Congress; 
three  became  Attorney-Generals;  four,  State  Treas 
urers;  three,  Lieutenant-Governors,  and  one  (Augus 
tus  C.  French),  Governor.  Re-elected  to  the  House  in 


LIFE    OF    LINCOLN.  27 

4^38,  and  again  in  1840,  we  find  him  the  associate  of 
such  men  as  Dr.  John  Logan,  the  father  of  Gen.  John 
A.  Logan;  William  H.  Bissell,  afterwards  Congress 
man  and  Governor ;  Lyrnan  Trambull,  afterwards  a 
Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  and  United  States  Sen 
ator;  Thomas  Drummond,  who  became  Judge  of  the 
United  States  District  Court:;  Joseph  Gillespie,  Ebenezer 
Peck,  and  many  more  v/ho  became  his  life-long  friends. 
His  prominence  at  this  time  is  shown  by  the  fact  that, 
at  both  of  these  sessions — 1838  and  1840 — -he  was  the 
choice  of  his  party  (the  Whig)  for  Speaker  of  the 
House,  but  defeated  by  the  candidate  of  the  Democracy, 
who  were  in  the  majorit}^ 

On  his  return  from  the  Legislature  of  1836-37,  he 
entered  upon  the  practice  of  law,  for  which  he  had 
been  preparing,  as  the  necessity  of  making  a  livelihood 
would  permit,  for  the  past  two  years,  entering  into 
partnership  with  his  preceptor  and  legislative  col 
league,  Hon.  John  T.  Stuart.  ^The  story  of  his 
removal,  as  told  by  his  friend,  Joshua  F.  Speed,  then 
a  merchant  of  Springfield,  whose  invitation  to  share 
his  room  Lincoln  finally  accepted,  is  so  graphic,  and, 
withal,  tinged  with  such  a  mixture  of  frankness, 
humor,  and  pathos,  as  to  be  worthy  of  reproduction 
here.  Mr.  Speed  says: 

"He  had  ridden  into  town  on  a  borrowed  horse,  and 
engaged  from  the  only  cabinet-maker  in  the  village  a 
single  bedstead.  He  came  into  my  store,  set  his  sad 
dle-bags  on  the  counter,  and  inquired  what  the  furni 
ture  for  a  single  bedstead  would  cost.  I  took  slate 
and  pencil,  made  a  calculation,  and  found  the  sum  for 
furniture,  complete,  would  amount  to  seventeen  dollars 
in  all  Said  he  :  'It  is  probably  cheap  enough  ;  but  I 


28  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

want  to  say  that,  cheap  as  it  is,  I  have  not  the  money 
to  pay.  But  if  you  will  credit  me  until  Christmas,  and 
my  experiment  as  a  lawyer  here  is  a  success,  I  will  pay 
you  then.  If  I  fail  in  that,  I  will  probably  never  pay 
you  at  all.'  The  tone  of  his  voice  was  so  melancholy 
that  I  felt  for  him.  I  looked  at  him,  and  I  thought 
then,  as  I  think  now,  that  I  never  saw  so  gloomy  and 
melancholy  a  face  in  my  life.  I  said  to  him,  *  So  small 
a  debt  seems  to  effect  you  so  deeply,  I  think  I  can  sug 
gest  a  plan  by  which  you  will  be  able  to  attain  your 
end  without  any  debt.  I  have  a  very  large  room,  and 
a  very  large  double-bed  in  it,  which  you  are  perfectly 
welcome  to  share  with  me  if  you  choose.'  *  Where  is 
your  room?'  he  asked.  'Upstairs,'  said  I,  pointing  to 
the  stairs  leading  from  the  store  to  my  room.  With 
out  saying  a  word,  he  took  his  saddle-bags  on  his  arm, 
went  upstairs,  set  them  down  on  the  floor,  came  down 
again,  and,  with  a  face  beaming  with  pleasure  and 
smiles,  exclaimed,  'Well,  Speed,  I'm  moved.'" 

The  friendship  between  Lincoln  and  Speed,  which 
began  in,  and  was  cemented  by  this  generous  act  of 
the  latter,  was  of  the  most  devoted  character,  and, 
although  Mr.  Speed  returned  to  his  native  State  of 
Kentucky  a  few  years  later,  it  was  continued  through 
life.  During  the  Civil  War,  he  was  intrusted  by  Mr. 
Lincoln  with  many  delicate  and  important  duties  in 
the  interest  of  the  Government.  His  brother,  James 
Speed,  was  appointed  by  Mr.  Lincoln  Attorney-Gen 
eral  in  1864,  but  resigned  after  the  accession  of  Presi 
dent  Johnson. 


LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

V. 
AS  LAWYER  AND  POLITICAL  LEADER. 

After  1840  Mr.  Lincoln  declined  a  re-election  to  the 
Legislature.  His  prominence  as  a  political  leader  was 
indicated  by  the  appearance  of  his  name  on  the  Whig 
electoral  ticket  of  that  year,  as  it  did  again  in  1844  and 
in  1852,  and  on  the  Republican  ticket  for  the  State-at- 
Large  in  1856.  Except  while  in  the  Legislature, 
from  1837  he  gave  his  attention  to  the  practice  of  his 
profession,  first  as  the  partner  of  Maj.  John  T.  Stuart, 
then  of  Judge  Stephen  T.  Logan,  and  finally  of  Wil 
liam  H.  Herndon,  the  latter  partnership  continuing,  at 
least  nominally,  until  his  death.  His  life  as  a  lawyer 
upon  "the  circuit"  was  much  to  his  liking,  as  it 
brought  him  in  contact  with  many  congenial  minds. 
Friendships  were  formed  during  this  period  which 
lasted  through  life.  Next  to  those  among  the  lawyers 
about  his  home  at  Springfield — the  Edwardses,  Judge 
Logan,  John  T.  Stuart,  J.  C.  Conkling,  and  others  of  an 
earlier  and  later  period — probably  none  was  stronger 
than  that  entertained  for  David  Davis,  of  Blooming- 
ton,  who  was  one  of  the  most  earnest  supporters  of  his 
nomination  for  the  Presidency  in  1860,  and  afterwards 
received  at  his  hands  an  appointment  on  the  Supreme 
Bench  of  the  United  States. 

In  an  address  before  the  Young  Men's  Lyceum  at 
Springfield,  in  January,  1837,  on  "The  Perpetuation  of 
our  Political  Institutions,"  Mr.  Lincoln  gave  out  what 
may  be  construed  as  one  of  his  earliest  public  utter 
ances  on  the  subject  of  slavery.  His  theme  was  sug 
gested  by  numerous  lynchings  and  mob  outrages  which 
had  been  taking  place  in  a  number  of  the  Southern 


30  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN. 

States — especially  in  Mississippi — and  by  the  recent 
burning  of  a  negro  in  St.  Louis  charged  with  the  com 
mission  of  a  murder.  The  argument,  as  a  whole,  was 
a  warning  against  the  danger  of  mob  law  to  the  prin 
ciples  of  civil  liberty  enunciated  in  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  and  a  cautious  plea  for  the  right  of  free 
speech.  In  it  he  said  : 

There  is  no  grievance  that  is  a  fit  object  of  redress 
by  mob  Jaw.  In  any  case  that  may  arise,  as,  for 
instance,  the  promulgation  of  abolitionism,  one  of 
two  positions  is  necessarily  true — that  the  thing  is 
right  within  itself,  and  therefore  deserves  protection 
of  all  law  and  all  good  citizens ;  or  it  is  wrong, 
and,  therefore,  proper  to  be  prohibited  by  legal 
enactments  ;  and  in  neither  case  is  the  interposition 
of  mob  law  either  necessary,  justifiable,  or  excus 
able." 

While  there  are  some  crudities  in  this  early  effort, 
and  an  absence  of  that  logical  clearness,  directness, 
and  force  which  distinguished  Mr.  Lincoln's  later  pro 
ductions,  it  indicates  the  bent  of  his  mind  at  that  time 
on  this  subject.  This  was  shown,  possibly,  with  still 
greater  emphasis  and  distinctness  during  the  session 
of  the  Legislature  in  March  of  the  same  year,  when, 
in  conjunction  with  one  other  member — his  colleague, 
Dan  Stone — he  entered  upon  the  House  Journal  his 
protest  against  a  series  of  pro-slavery  resolutions  which 
had  been  adopted  by  that  body.  In  that  document  the 
protestants  expressed  their  belief  "that  the  institution 
of  slavery  is  founded  on  both  injustice  and  bad  policy," 
and  that,  while  Congress  had  "no  power  under  the 
Constitution  to  interfere  with  the  institution  of  slavery 
m  the  different  States,"  it  had  the  power  to  abolish 


LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  31 

it  In  the  District  of  Columbia,  but  ought  not  to 
exercise  it  except  at  the  request  of  the  people  of  the 
District. " 

On  November  4,  1842,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  married  to 
Miss  Mary  Todd,  but  held  no  office  until  his  election  in 
]  846  as  Representative  in  Congress  for  the  Springfield 
District.  He  made  several  speeches  during  his  term, 
the  most  noteworthy  being  one  in  which,  in  his  char 
acteristic  style,  he  took  ground  in  opposition  to  the 
position  of  the  administration  in-  reference  to  the  Mex 
ican  War — on  that  subject  agreeing  with  the  famous 
Tom  Corwin.  His  attitude  on  the  slavery  question  is 
indicated  by  his  statement  that,  while  in  Congress,  he 
voted  in  favor  of  the  Wilmot  Proviso  forty-two  times, 
and  supported  a  bill  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the 
District  of  Columbia,  with  the  consent  of  the  voters  of 
the  District  and  with  compensation  to  the  owners. 
This  was  his  uniform  position  with  reference  to  slavery 
up  to  the  time  when  the  slave-holders  forfeited  their 
right  to  be  protected  by  engaging  in  rebellion,  and  when 
its  abolition  became  a  "war  measure." 


VI. 
ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  REPUPLICAN  PARTY. 

Impelled  by  the  necessity  of  providing  for  his  family, 
during  the  five  years  following  his  retirement  from 
Congress  in  1849,  Mr.  Lincoln  gave  his  time  to  the 
practice  of  his  profession  more  industriously  than  ever 
before.  •  The  passage,  in  May,  1854,  of  the  so-called 


32  LIFE   OF   LINCOLN. 

Kansas-Nebraska  bill,  repealing'  the  Missouri  Compro 
mise  and  opening  the  way  for  the  admission  of  slavery 
into  territory  which  had  been  "dedicated  to  freedom," 
again  called  him  into  the  political  arena,  and  marked  a 
new  'era  m  his  career.  Although  neither  holding  an 
office  nor  a  candidate  for  one,  he  almost  immediately 
became  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  opposition  to  that 
measure.  During  the  early  days  of  October,  1854,  the 
State  Fair  being  in  progress,  Senator  Douglas  came  to 
Springfield  to  enter  upon  a  defense  of  his  action.  In 
Mr.  Lincoln  and  Lyman  Trumbull  he  found  his  chief 
and  ablest  critics  and  antagonists.  Two  weeks  later, 
Mr.  Lincoln  delivered,  at  Peoria,  probably  the  most 
exhaustive  argument  that  had,  so  far,  .been*  delivered 
on  this  question.  .At  this  time,  Mr.  Lincoln  had  strong 
hopes  that  the  Whig  party  would  align  itself  in  opposi 
tion  to  the  Nebraska  bill,  and  refused  to  identify  him 
self  with  any  scheme  for  the  organization  of  a  new 
party.  At  the  November  election,  he  and  Judge 
Stephen  T.  Logan — confessedly  the  two  ablest  men  of 
the  party  in  Sangamon  County — were  taken  up  and 
elected  to  the  Legislature.  Lincoln,  recognizing  that 
his  name  was  to  .come  before  the  Legislature  at  the 
coining  session,  as  a  candidate  for  the  United  States 
Senate,  as  a  successor  to  General  Shields,  declined  to 
accept  his  certificate  of  election,  thereby  leaving  a 
vacancy  to  be  filled  by  a  special  election.  By  the 
device  popularly  known  as  a  "still  hunt,"  a  Democrat 
was  chosen  to  fill  the  vacancy.  When  the  Legislature 
met  on  January  i,  1855,  the  Anti-Nebraska  Whigs  and 
Anti-Nebraska  Democrats  still  had  a  small  majority. 
The  Senatorial  election  came  on  February  8.  •  Lincoln 
became  the  caucus  nominee  of  the  Whigs,  Shields  of, 


LIFE   OF   LINCOLN.  33 

the  straight-out  Democrats,  while  Lyman  Trurnbull 
received  the  support -of  the  And- Nebraska  Democrats. 
On  the  first  ballot  Lincoln  received  his  full  vote  of 
forty-five  members,  while  Trumbull  received  five, 
which,  combined  with  the  Lincoln  vote,  would  have 
been  sufficient  to  elect — all  other  candidates  receiving 
forty-nine  votes.  Trumbull' s  supporters  stood  by 
him,  while  a  portion  of  Lincoln's  fell  off.  Before 
reaching  the  tenth  ballot  it  was  evident  that  a  combi 
nation  would  have  to  be  effected  in  order  to  prevent 
the  election  of  a  Democrat.  By  Lincoln's  advice,  his 
friend  Q  went  to  Trumbull,  and  he  was  elected.  While 
Lincoln  frankly  acknowledged  his  disappointment 
at  the  result,  he  never  displayed  his  characteristic 
magnanimity  and  unselfishness,  for  the  good  of  the 
cause  which  he  represented  and  the  welfare  of  the 
country,  more  conspicuously  than  he  did  in  this  in 
stance. 

A  year  later,  realizing  the  utter  hopelessness  of  the 
attempt  to  inspire  the  Whig  party  with  new  life,  he 
entered  with  zeal  into  the  work  of  organizing  a  new 
party.  He  attended  the  conference  of  a  dozen  Anti- 
Nebraska  editors  held  at  Decatur  on  the  22d  of  Feb 
ruary,  1856,  for  the  purpose  of  agreeing  on  a  line  of 
policy  to  be  pursued  in  opposition  to  the  effort  to  carry 
slavery  into  the  new  Territories  under  the  Kansas- 
Nebraska  Act.  He  consulted  with  the  Committee  on 
Resolutions,  with  the  result  -  that  a  platform  was 
adopted  clearly  embodying  the  principles  finally 
enunciated  by  the  Republican  party.  A  resolution 
was  also  adopted  appointing  a  State  Convention  to  be 
held  at  Blooming-ton  on  May  29,  following,  with  a  State 
Central  Committee  to  carry  this  program  into  effect. 


34  LIFE   OF    LINCOLN. 

At  a  banquet  given  in  the  evening  to  the  members  of 
the  conference  at  the  St.  Nicholas  Hotel,  by  the  citizens 
of  Dccatur,  while  discountenancing  the  use  of  his  own 
name  as  a  candidate  for  Governor,  he  favored  the 
nomination  of  Col.  William  H.  Bissell,  as  that  of  an 
Anti-Nebraska  Democrat  who  would  unite  all  the  ele 
ments  opposed  to  the  Nebraska  bill  in  his  support. 
The  convention  was  held  at  the  time  and  place  named ; 
Mr.  Lincoln  made  before  it  one  of  the  ablest  and  most 
inspiring  speeches  of  his  life;  the  Republican  party,  so 
far  as  Illinois  was  concerned,  was  brought  into  exist 
ence;  the  program  proposed  by  him  at  Decatur,  for 
the  nomination  of  Bissell  for  Governor,  was  carried 
into  effect  by  acclamation,  and  its  wisdom  demon 
strated  by  the  election  of  the  entire  State  ticket  in 
November  following.  In  the  first  National  Conven 
tion  of  the  Republican  party,  held  at  Philadelphia  on 
June  17,  he  was  a  leading  candidate  for  the  nomination 
for  the  Vice-Presidency  on  the  Fremont  ticket,  receiv 
ing  no  votes,  and  coining  next  to  William  L.  Dayton, 
who-was  nominated.  In  the  canvass  of  that  year,  he 
made  over  fifty  speeches  in  different  parts  of  the 
State,  though  not  a  candidate  for  any  office  except  as 
the  head  of  the  electoral  ticket. 


VII. 

HOUSE-DIVIDED-AGAINST-ITSELF  SPEECH— THE 
LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE  OF  1858. 

With  the  exception  of  a  speech  before  his  neighbors 
at  Springfield,  in  reply  to  one  by  Judge  Douglas,  in 


LIFE   OF   LINCOLN.  35 

June,  1857,  Mr.  Lincoln  gave  little  time  to  politics 
between  1856  and  1858,  devoting  his  attention  chiefly 
to  his  profession.  As  the  date'  of  the  State  Conven 
tions  of  the  latter  year  approached,  the  political  ele 
ments  .began  to  seethe  and  bubble.  That  of  the 
Republicans  met  June  i6th.  After  naming  candidates 
for  the  State  offices  ,a  resolution  was  unanimously 
'adopted  declaring  Abraham  Lincoln  its  "first  and 
only  choice  for  United  States  Senator,  to  fill  the 
yacancy  about  to  be  created  by  the  expiration  of 
Mr.  Douglas'  term  of  office."  In  the  evening,  Mr. 
Lincoln  delivered  .an  address  in  response  to  this  reso 
lution.  This  meeting  was  held  in  the  Hall  of  Repre 
sentatives  in  the  old  State  capitol.  His  speech  was,  in 
large  part,  ^a  reiteration  of  the  sentiments  expressed  at 
the  Bloomington  Convention  of  two  years  before, 
carried  out  to  their  logical  conclusions.  As  it  was 
written  out,  there  is  no  doubt  of  the  accuracy  of  the 
report  given  to  thejpublic.  This  has  been  universally 
recognized  as  one  of  the  most  important  utterances  of 
his  life,  scarcely  second  in  importance  to  his  two 
inaugural  addresses.  Its  most  striking  passage  is 
comprised  in  the  following  paragraph : 

"A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand.  I 
believe  this  Government  cannot  endure  permanently 
half  slave  and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect  the  Union 
to  be  dissolved — I  do  not  expect  the  house  to  fall — but 
I  do  expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided.  It  will  become 
all  one  thing  or  all  the  other.  Either  the  opponents 
of  slavery  will  arrest  the  further  spread  of  it,  and  place 
it»where  the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the  belief  that  it 
is  in  course  of  ultimate  extinction ;  or  its  advocates 
will  push  it  forward,  till  ij^hall  become  alike  lawful  in 


36  LIFE   OF   LINCOLN. 

all  the  States — old  as  well  as  new,  North  as  well  as 
South." 

While  he  recognized  that  there  was  a  ''tendency  to 
the  latter  condition,"  in  the  removal  of  the  last  obstacle 
to  the  introduction  of  slavery  in  the  new  Territories 
by  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  he  evi 
dently  hoped  for  a  different  result,  as  shown  by  the 
encouraging  words  with  which  he  closed  this  historical 
•address : 

44  The  result  is  not  doubtful.  We  shall  not  fail— if 
we  stand  firm,  we  shall  not  fail.  Wise  counsels  may 
accelerate  or  mistakes  delay  it,  but  sooner  or  later  the 
victory  is  sure  to  come." 

The  effect  of  this  speech  was  startling,  While  it 
provoked  the  bitter  criticism  of  his  opponents — who, 
without  justification,  denounced  it  as  a  plea  for  dis 
union — it  was  regarded  by  many  of  his  friends  as  ill- 
advised.  Yet  its  far-reaching  sagacity  and  foresight, 
which  now  seem  to  have  been  prompted  by  a  species 
of  inspired  prophecy,  were  demonstrated  by  the  events 
of  less  than  five  years  later,  in  which  he  was  a  prin 
cipal  factor. 

The  Springfield  speech  was  followed,  a  few  months 
later,  by  the  series  of  joint  debates  with  Senator 
Douglas,  in  which  Lincoln  was  the  challenging  party, 
Douglas  naming  the  conditions.  Seven  meetings  were 
held,  as  follows:  Ottawa,  August  21;  Freeport,  Au 
gust  27;  Jonesboro,  September  15;  Charleston,  Sep* 
tember  18;  Galesburg,  October  7;  Quincy,  October  13; 
Alton,  October  15 — Douglas  opening  and  closing -at 
four  and  Lincoln  at  three.  They  not  only  arcmsed  the 
interest  of  both  parties  throughout  the  State,  but 
attracted  the  attention  of  the  whole  country.  A  fea- 


LIFE^F  LINCOLN.  37 

ture  of  this  debate  was  the  seven  questions  submitted 
to  Douglas  by  Lincoln,  four  of  which  were  propounded 
at  Freeport  and  the  other  three  at  subsequent  dates. 
These  were  a  sort  of  offset  to  an  equal  number  of 
questions  propounded  to  Lincoln  by  Douglas  at  their 
first  debate  at  Ottawa.  The  answers  made  by  Douglas 
involved  him  in  inconsistencies  and  apparent  contra- 
dictions,  which  weakened  him  in  the  South  and  con 
tributed  to  his  defeat  as  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency 
in  1860. 

At  the  election  in  November,  1858 — although  the 
Republicans  elected  their  State  ticket  by  nearly  4,000 
plurality — the  friends  of  Judge  Douglas  secured  a 
majority  in  the  Legislature,  thus  a  second  time  defeat 
ing  Mr.  Lincoln's  aspirations,  to  the  United  States 
Senate. 

This  debate  served  as  a  sort- of  school  for  Mr.  Lin 
coln,  in  which  he  studied,  with  the  deepest  intensity, 
those  questions  affecting  human  rights  and  the  per 
manent  welfare  of  the  nation ;  and,  while  proving  the 
capacity  which  he  ever  manifested  to  rise  to  every 
demand  of  the  occasion,  qualified  him  for  the  problems 
which  he  was  called  to  face  a  few  years  later.  The 
national  reputation  thus  won  for  him  was  still  further 
enhanced  by  his  speeches  in  Ohio  in  September,  1859, 
still  later  in  Kansas,  and  early  in  1860  in  the  East — 
that  delivered  at  Cooper  Institute,  New  York,  on  Feb 
ruary  27,  i36o,  being  the  most  memorable.  The 
latter,  by  their  sound  sentiment,  convincing  logic,  and 
lofty  patriotism,  evoked  the  admiration  of  Eastern 
Republicans  and  prepared  the  way  for  what  was  to 
come  at  Chicago  in  May  following. 


^  LIFE   OF   LINCOLN. 

VIII. 

ELECTION  TO  THE  PRESIDENCY-ADMINISTRA- 
TION— DEATH. 

The  National  Republican  Convention  met  at  Chi 
cago,  May  1 6,  1860.  The  Republicans  of  Illinois  haxl 
already  been  stirred  to  enthusiasm  by  the  scenes  wit 
nessed  in  the  State  Convention  at  Decatur,  a  week 
earlier,  and  this  was  sustained  in  the  National  Conven 
tion  by  the  presence  of  such  men,  on  the  floor  or  in 
the  audience,  as  David  Davis,  Norman  B.  Judd,  Bur 
ton  C.  Cook,  Stephen  T.  Logan,  O.  H.  Browning, 
Leonard  Swett,  R.  J.  Oglesby,  Joseph  Gillespie,  and 
large  delegations  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  personal  friends 
from  all  parts  of  Illinois,  to  say  nothing  of  those  from 
other  States.  - 

The  work  of  nominating  a  candidate  for  President 
was  taken  up  on  the  third  ctay — May  18.  On  the  first 
ballot,  William  H.  Seward  led  Lincoln  by  53^  votes, 
on  the  second  by  only  3^;  on  the  third,  Lincoln 
received  231^  votes  to  180  for  Seward — all  others 
receiving  53}^  votes.  Before  the  result  was  announced, 
Lincoln's  vote  had  increased  to  354,  and  he  was  finally 
nominated  unanimously  amid  the  wildest  e'nthusiasm. 
Lincoln  received  the  announcement  of  his  nomination 
in  the  editorial  room  of  "The  State  Journal"  at 
Springfield,  and,  after  receiving  the  congratulations 
of  his  friends,  withdrew  to  inform  his  wife  of  the 
result. 

The  succeeding  campaign  was  one  of  great  earnest 
ness  and  enthusiasm  on  the  part  of  his  political  friends 
in  all  the  Northern  States,  and  one  of  intense  bitter 
ness  on  the  part_of  his  enemies,  especially  in  the 


LIFE   OF...  LINCOLN.  39 

South.  He  was  described  in  the  partisan  press  as 
rude,  ignorant,  and  uncultivated  to  the  last  .degree, 
and  pictured  as  a  "baboon,"  and  even  painted  as  a  sot 
and  drunkard  after  his  election,  in  spite  of  his  abstemi 
ous  habits.  The  election  in  November  gave  him  a 
plurality  of  the  popular  v.,te  and  180  electoral  votes 
out  of  303,  although  not  a  single  vote  was  returned  for 
him  from. ten  Southern  States. 

From  this  point  the  history  of  his  life  is  the  history 
of  his  country.  On  the  morning  of  February  n,  1861, 
he  left  his  home  at  Springfield  to  assume  the  duties  of 
his  office  at  Washington.  Standing  on  the  rear  plat 
form  of  the  train  at  the  depot  of  the  Great  Western 
(now  the  Wabash)  Railroad,  he  addressed  his  friends 
and  neighbors,  who  had  assembled  to  witness  his 
departure : 

"My  Friends;  No  one  not  in  my  position  can  realize 
the  sadness  I  -feel  at  this  parting.  To  this  people  I 
owe  all  that  I  am.  Here  I  have  lived  more  than  a 
quarter  of  a  century.  Here  my  children  "were  born, 
and  here  one  of  them  lies  buried.  I  know  not  how 
soon  I  shall  see  you  again.  I  go  to  assume  a  task  more 
difficult  than  that  which  has  devolved  upon  any  other 
man  since  the  days  of  Washington.  He  never  would  have 
succeeded  except  for  the  aid  of.  Divine  Providence, 
upon  which  he  at  all  times  relied.  I  feel  that  I  cannot 
succeed  without  the  same  divine  blessing  which  sus 
tained  hirn;  and  on  the  same  Almighty  Being  I  place 
my  reliance  for  support.  And  I  hope  you,  my  friends, 
will  all  pray  that  I  may  .receive  that  divine  assistance, 
without  which  I  cannot  succeed,  but  with  which  suc 
cess  is  certain.  Again,  I  bid  you  an  affectionate  fare 
well." 


40  LIFE   OF   LINCOLN. 

No  man  ever  spoke  with  profounder  earnestness,  or 
from  a  conscience  stirred  to  deeper  feeling  by  the  bur 
den  of  responsibility  which  had  been  placed  upon  his 
shoulders  by  the  .choice  bf  the  people.  His  route  on 
the  \yay  to  the  National  Capital  lay  through  the  States 
of  Indiana,  Ohio,  New  York,  New  Jersey,  and  Pennsyl 
vania,  and,  at  nearly  every  important  station,  immense 
throngs  were  gathered  to  greet  him  and  bid  him  God 
speed  in  the  cause  he  had  undertaken.  The  discovery  of 
a  plot  to  assassinate  him  in  Baltimore  led  to  a  change 
of  the  program  of  his  journey  at  Harrisburg,  and 
he  passed  through  Baltimore  at  night  in  company  with 
Ward  H.  Lamon  and  Allan  Pinkerton,  the  detective, 
arriving  at  Washington  in  safety  on  the  morning-  of 
February  23. 

At  that  time  the  National  Capital  was  full  of  leaders 
of  secession,  and  unrest  and  mutual  suspicion  pre 
vailed  everywhere.  Already  seven  States  had  adopted 
ordinances  of  secession,  and  four  more  soon  followed 
their  example. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  inaugural  address  was  a  touching 
appeal  to  stand  by  the  Union,  but,  so  far  as  the  great 
bulk  of  the  Southern  people  were  concerned,  it  fell 
upon  deaf  ears.  Then  'came*  four  years  of  civil  war 
with  all  its  horrors.  These  were  years  of  the  deepest 
gloom  and  anxiety  for  Mr.  Lincoln,  but  he  never 
swerved  from  the  duty  he  had  assumed  on  the  day  of 
his  inauguration,  to  "preserve,  protect,  and  defend" 
the  Union. 

The  fall  of  Fort  Sumter,  the  disaster  at  Bull  Run, 
the.  reverses  at  Fredericksburg  and  Chancellorsville, 
and  the  long  wait  of  McClellan  at  Manassas  and  in  the 
Valley  of  the  James — though  counterbalanced  by  the 


LIFE   OF   LINCOLN.  41 

Union  victories  in  the  West,  especially  at  Fort  Donel- 
son  and  Vicksburg,  and  the  check'  to  rebel  invasion  at 
Antietam  and  Gettysburg — tried  the  patience  and  faith 
of  the  President  greatly,  but  he  never  lost  confidence 
in  the  ultimate  success  of  the  Union  cause.  Then,  too, 
he  was  the  subject  of  bitter  criticism  on  the  part  of 
political  enemies,  as  well  as.  a  class  of  political  friends 
— by  the  former,  because  he  consented  to  the  appeal  to 
arms  at  all  in  defense  of  the  Union;  by  the  latter, 
because  the  war  was  not  pushed  with  sufficient  energy, 
and  especially  on  his  tardiness  in  striking  at  the  insti 
tution  of  slavery,  which  was  regarded  as  the  cause  of 
the  war.  And  yet,  as  to  the  latter,  it  is  the  universal 
judgment  of  impartial  historians  of  that  period,  that  he 
chose  the  right  juncture  for  the  issue  of  the  Emancipa 
tion  Proclamation  of  January  i,  1863. 

That  document — now  universally  regarded,  next  to 
the  preservation  of  the  Union  itself,  as  the  crowning 
feature  of  his  administration — preceded  by  the  prelim 
inary  proclamation  of  September  22,  1862,  was  issued 
as  a  "war  measure"  after  months  of  anxious  delibera 
tion.  It  is  well  known  that  Mr.  Lincoln,  while 
determined  to  resist  the  further  extension  of  slavery 
into  free  territory,  and  desirous  of  its  "ultimate  extinc 
tion,"  still  believed  that  the  supremacy  of  the  laws  and 
the  Constitution  should  be  respected,  on  this  question 
as  well  as  all  others.  For  this  reason,  he  urged  upon 
the  few  loyal  members  who  still  remained  in  Congress 
from  the  Southern  States  the  acceptance  of  emancipa 
tion  with  compensation — which,  if  accepted  by  the 
South  as  a  solution  of  the  controversy  between  the 
two  sections,  would  have  resulted  in  immense  saving 
of  life  and  treasure.  But  this  was  not  to  be,  and  the 


42  LIFE  OF   LINCOLN. 

blow  came,  forced  as  a  "war  measure/'  immediately 
upon  the  heels  of  the  victory  at  Antietarn.  If  it  had 
come  earlier,  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  it  would 
have  cost  the  Union  some  of  its  ablest  but  more  con 
servative  supporters.  Mr.  Lincoln  never  evinced  his 
remarkable  political  sagacity  more  strikingly  than  in 
the  time  and  manner  of  its  issue,  and  it  was  accepted 
by  the  people  and  the  army,  as  a  rule,  without  protest 
— often  with  enthusiastic  approval  as  time  proved  its 
wisdom.  And  thus  was  verified  the  prophecy  which 
he  had  made  in  his  "house-divided-against-itself" 
speech  less  than  five  years  before — and  he  had  been 
the  chief  instrument  in  its  accomplishment. 

The  re-election  of  Mr.  Lincoln  in  1864,  followed  by 
the  triumph  of  Thomas  and  Sherman  in  the' West,  and 
of  Grant  before  Richmond,  determined  the  fate  of  the 
Union.  On  April  3,  1865,  the  Union  forces  entered 
the  city  of  Richmond,  and,  the  day  following,  Presi 
dent  Lincoln  visited  the  Rebel  capital,  receiving  an 
enthusiastic  welcome,  the  most  unique  feature  of  which, 
was  .the  .thanks  of  the  members  of  the  race  whom  he 
had  emancipated.  On  the  nth — two  days  after  the 
surrender  of  Lee  to  Grant — he  arrived  in  Washington. 
Three  days  later  (April  14),  the  fourth  anniversary  of 
the  fall  of  Fort  Sumter,  the  people  in  the  principal 
cities  of  the  country  celebrated  the  fall  of  Richmond, 
the  surrender  of  Lee,  and  the  end  of  the  rebellion. 

On  the  evening  of  that  day,  Mr.  Lincoln,  accom 
panied  by  his  wife,  attended  Ford's  Theatre  in  Wash 
ington,  and,  about  half  past  nine,  was  shot  by  John 
Wilkes  Booth,  a  fanatical  champion  of  secession.  His 
death  occurred  at  7:22  o'clock  the  next  morning. 
The  nation,  which  had  been  rejoicing  the  day  befor 


LIFE  OF  LINCOLN.  43 

over  a  restored  Union,  was  cast  beneath  a  pall  of  the 
deepest  gloom.  His  public  funeral  occurred  on  the 
1 9th,  after  which  his  remains  lay  in  state  in  the 
rotunda  of  the  National  Capitol.  On  the  2ist, 
the  funeral  cortege  started  on  its  sorrowful  journey  to 
Springfield,  stopping  at  the  principalities  en  route, 
and  arriving  at  "its  destination  on  the  morning  of  May 
3d.  No  such  evidence  of  national  sorrow  has  been 
witnessed  in  this  country  or  elsewhere.  His  remains 
lay  in  state  in  the  Hall  of  Representatives — the  theater 
of  some  of  his  most  brilliant  oratorical  triumphs — until 
the  4th,  when  the  final  obsequies  took  place  in  Oak 
Ridge  Cemetery,  Bishop  Simpson,  of  the  Methodist 
Church,  delivering  the  funeral  address.  Here  a  stately 
monument,  including  a  statue  of  the  martyred  Presi 
dent,  has  been  erected  to  his  memory,  which  was  dedi 
cated,  October  15,  1874,  the  late  Governor  Oglesby 
delivering  the  principal  address.  Among  other  distin 
guished  men  present,  and  who  delivered  addresses, 
were  Gen.  U.  S.  Grant  (then  President),  Vice-President 
Henry  Wilson,  Gen.  William  T.  Sherman,  Hon.  Wil 
liam  E.  Forster,  M.P.,  of  England,  and  Hon.  Schuyler 
Colfax. 

Nothing  could  more  strikingly  illustrate  Mr.  Lin 
coln's  high  ideal  and  firmness  for  the  right,  his  intense 
humanity,  his  deep  sympathy  and  his  broad  charity  for 
all — friends  and  foes  alike — than  the  closing  paragraph 
of  his  last  inaugural  address — his  last  important  public 
utterance : 

14 With  malice  toward  none;  with  charity  for  all; 
with  firmness  in  the  right,  as  God  gives  us  to  see  the 
right,  let  us  strive. on  to  finish  the  work"  we  are  in;  to 
bind  tip  the  nation's  wounds;  to  care  for  him  who  shall 


44  LIFE  OF   LINCOLN. 

have  borne  the  battle,  and  for  his  widow  and  his 
orphan — to  do  all  which  may  achieve  and  cherish  a 
just  and  lasting  peace  among  ourselves  and  with  all 
nations." 


Stories  of  Lincoln's 
Early  Life. 

BOOKS  READ  BY  LINCOLN  IN  HIS  EARLY  LIFE. 

The  books  which  Abraham  had  the  early  privilege 
of  reading  were  the  Bible,  much  of  which  he  could 
repeat,  ^Esop's  Fables,  all  of  which  he  could  repeat, 
Pilgrim's  Progress,  Weem's  Life  of  Washington,  and 
a  Life  of  Henry  Clay,  which  his  mother  had  managed 
to  purchase  for  him.  Subsequently  he  read  the  Life 
of  Franklin  and  Ramsey's  Life  of  Washington.  In 
these  books,  read  and  re-read,  he  found  meat  for  his 
hungry  mind.  The  Holy  Bible,  JEsop  and  John 
Bunyan — could  three  better  books  have  been  chosen 
for  him  from  the  richest  library? 

For  those  who  have  witnessed  the  dissipating  effects 
of  many  books  upon  the  minds  of  modern  children,  it  is 
not  hard  to  believe  that  Abraham's  poverty  of  books 
was  the  wealth  of  his  life.  These  three  books  did 
much  to  perfect  that  which  his  mother's  teaching  had 
begun,  and  to  form  a  character  which,  for  quaint  sim 
plicity,  earnestness,  truthfulness  and  purity,  has  never 

45 


46    STORIES  OF  LINCOLN'S  EARLY  LIFE. 

been  surpassed  among  the  historic  personages  of  the 
world:  The  Life  of  Washington,  while  it  gave  him  a 
lofty  example  of  patriotism,  incidentally  conveyed  to  h'is 
mind  a  general  knowledge  of  American  history;  and 
the  Life  of  Henry  Clay  spoke  to  him  of  a  living  man 
who  had  risen  to  political  and  professional  eminence 
from  circumstances  almost  as  humble  as  his  own. 

The  latter  book  undoubtedl}|did  much  to  excite  his 
taste  for  politics,  to  kindle  his  ambition,  and  to  make 
him  a  warm  admirer  and  partisan  of  Henry  Clay. 
Abraham  must  have  been  very  young  when  he 
read  Weem's  Life  of  Washington,  and  we  catch  a 
glimpse  of  his  precocity  in  the  thoughts  which  it 
excited,  as  revealed  by  himself  in  the  speech  made  to 
the  New  Jersey  Senate,  while  on  his  way  to  Washing 
ton  to  assume  the  duties  of  the  Presidency. 

Alluding  to  his  early  reading  of  this  book,  he  says: 
"I  remember  all  the  accounts  there  given  of  the  battle 
fields  and  struggles  for  the  liberty  of  the  country,  and 
none  fixed  themselves  upon  my  imagination  so  deeply 
as  the  struggle  here  at  Trenton,  New  Jersey.  I 
recollect  thinking  then,  a  boy  even  though  I  was,  that 
there  must  have  been  something  more  than  common 
that  those  men  struggled  for."  Even  at  this  age,  he 
Was  not  only  an  interested  reader  of  the  story,  but  a 
Student  of  motives. 


ABE'S  REBUKE. 


"The  first  time  I  ever  remember  seeing  Ahe  Lin 
coln,"  is  the  testimony  of  one  of  his  neighbors,  "was 
when.  I  .was  a  small  boy  and  had  gone  with  my  father 
to  attend  some  kind  of  an  election,  One  of  the  neigh- 


STORIES  OF  LINCOLN'S  EARLY  LIFE     49 

bors,  James  Larkins,  was  there.  Larkins  was  a  great 
hand  to  brag  on  anything  he  owned.  This  time  it  was 
his  horse.  He  stepped  up  before  Abe,  who  was  in  a 
crowd,  and  commenced  talking  to  him,  boasting  all 
the  while  of  his  animal. 

"  'I  have  got  the  best  horse  in  the  country,'  he 
shouted  "to  his  young  listener.  4I  ran  him  nine  miles 
in  exactly  three  minutes,  and  he  never  fetched  a  long 
breath. '  * 

14  'I  presume/  said  Abe,  rather  dryly,  *he  fetched  a 
good  many  short  ones,  though.'  " 


LINCOLN'S  LIZARD  STORY. 

A  country  meeting-house,  that  was  used  once  a 
month,  was  quite  a  distance  from  any  other  house. 

The  preacher,  an  old-line  Baptist,  was  dressed  in 
coarse  linen  pantaloons,  and  shirt  of  the  same  material. 
The  pants,  manufactured  after  the  old  fashion,  with 
baggy  legs  and  a  flap  in  the  front,  were  made  to  attach 
to  his  frame  without  the  aid  of  suspenders.  A 'single 
bution  held  his  shirt  in  position,  and  that  was  at  the 
collar.  He  rose  up  in  the  pulpit,  and  with  a  loud 
voice  announced  his  text  thus:  "I  am  the  Christ  whom 
I  shall  represent  to-day." 

About  this  time  a  little  blue  lizard  ran  up  his  roomy 
pantaloons.  The  old  preacher,  not  wishing  to  inter 
rupt  the  steady  flow  of  his  sermon,  slapped  away  on 
his  leg,  expecting  to  arrest  the  intruder ;  but  his  efforts 
were  unavailing,  and  the  little  fellow  kept  on  ascend 
ing  higher  and  higher.  Continuing  the  sermon,  the 
preacher  loosened  the  central  button  which  graced  the. 


50    STORIES  OF  LINCOLN'S  EARLY  LIFE. 

waistband  of  his  pantaloons,  and  with  a  kick  off  came 
that  easy  fitting  garment.  But,  meanwhile,  Mr.  Lizard 
had  passed  the  equatorial  line  of  the  waistband,  and 
was  calmly  exploring  that  part  of  the  preacher's 
anatomy  which  lay  underneath  the  back  of  his  shirt 
Things  were  now  growing  interesting,  but  the  sermon 
was  still  grinding  011.  The  next  movement  on  the 
preacher's  part  was  £<>•*•  the  collar  button,  and  with 
one  sweep  of  his  arm  off  came  'the  tow  linen  shirt. 
The  congregation  sat  for  an  instant  as  if  dazed;  at 
length  one  old  lady  in  the  rear  part  of  the  room  rose 
up,  and  glancing  at  the  excited  object  in  the  pulpit, 
shouted  at  the  top  of  her  voice,  "If  you  represent 
Christ,  then  I'm  done  with  the  Bible." 


HOW  LINCOLN  OBTAINED  THE  NAME  OF 
"HONEST  ABE." 

During  the  year  that  Lincoln  was  in  Denton  Offutt's 
store,  that  gentleman,  whose  business  was  somewhat 
widely  and  unwisely  spread  about  the  country,  ceased 
to  prosper  in  his  finances,  and  finally  failed.  The 
store  was  shut  up,  the  mill  was  closed,  and  Abraham 
Lincoln  was  out  of  business.  The  year  had  been  one 
of  great  advance,  in  many  respects.  He  had  made 
new  and  valuable  acquaintances,  read  many  books, 
mastered  the  grammar  of  his  own  tongue,  won  multi 
tudes  of  friends,  and  became  ready  for  a  step  still 
further  in  advance.  Those  who  could  appreciate 
brains  respected  him,  and  those  whose  ideas  of  a  man 
related  to  his  muscles  were  devoted  to  him.  It  was 
while  he  was  performing  the  work  of  the  store  that  he 


STORIES  OF  LINCOLN'S  EARLY  LIFE.      5* 

acquired  the  sobriquet  "Honest  Abe" — a  characteriza 
tion  that  he  never  dishonored,  and  an  abbreviation  that 
he  never  outgrew.  He  was  judge,  arbitrator,  referee, 
umpire,  authority,  in  all  disputes,  games  and  matches 
of  man-flesh,  horse-flesh,  a  pacificator  in  all  quarrels; 
everybody's  friend;  the  best-natured,  the  most  sen 
sible,  the  best-informed,  the  most  modest  and  unassum 
ing,  the  kindest,  gentlest,  roughest,  strongest,  best 
fellow  in  all  New  Salem  and  the  region  round  about. 


LINCOLN  CARRIES  A  DRUNKARD  EIGHTY  RODS 
ON  HIS  BACK. 

An  instance  of  young  Lincoln's  practical  humanity 
at  an  early  period  of  his  life  is  recorded  as  follows: 
One  evening,  while  returning  from  a  "raising"  in  his 
wide  neighborhood,  with  a  number  of  companions,  he 
discovered  a  stray  horse,  with  saddle  and  bridle  upon 
him.  The  horse  was  recognized  as  belonging  to  a  man 
who  was  accustomed  to  excess  in  drink,  and  it  was  sus 
pected  at  once  that  the  owner  was  not  far  off.  A  short 
search  only  was  necessary  to  confirm  the  suspicion  of 
the  men. 

The  poor  drunkard  was  found  in  a  perfectly  helpless 
condition,  upon  the  chilly  ground.  Abraham's  com 
panions  urged  the  cowardly  policy  of  leaving  him  to 
his  fate,  but  young  Lincoln  would  not  hear  to  the 
proposition.  At  his  request,  the  miserable  sot  was 
lifted  on  his  shoulders,  and  he  actually  carried  him 
eighty  rods  to  the  nearest  house.  Sending  word  to  his 
father-  that  he  should  not  be  back  that  night,  with  the 
reason  for  his  absence,  he  attended  and  nursed  the 


52    STORIES  OF  LINCOLN'S  EARLY  LIFE. 

man  until  the  morning,  and  had  the  pleasure  of  believ 
ing  that  he  had  saved  his  life. 


HOW  LINCOLN  EARNED  HIS  FIRST  DOLLAR. 

The  following  interesting  story  was  told  by  Mr.  -Lin 
coln  to  Mr.  Seward  and  a  few  friends  one  evening  in 
the  Executive  Mansion  at  Washington.  The  Presi 
dent  said:  "Seward,  you  never  heard,  did  you,  how  I 
earned  my  first  dollar?" 

"No,"  rejoined  Mr.  Seward. 

"Well,"  continued  Mi*.  Lincoln,  "I  belonged,  you 
know,  to  what  they  called  down  South  the  'scrubs.' 
We  had  succeeded  in  raising,  chiefly  by  my  labor, 
sufficient  produce,  as  I  thought,  to  justify  me  in  tak 
ing  it  down  the  river  to  sell. 

"After  much  persuasion,  I  got  the  consent  of  mother 
to  go,  and  constructed  a  little  flatboat,  large  enough  to 
take  a  barrel  or  two  of  things  that  we  had  gathered, 
with  myself  and  little  bundle,  down  to  the  Southern 
market.  A  steamer  was  coming  down  the  river.  We 
have,  you  know,  no  wharves  on  the  Western  streams ; 
and  the  custom  was,  if  passengers  were  at  any- of  the 
landings,  for  them  to  go  out  in  a  boat,  the  steamer 
stopping  and  taking  them  on  board 

"I  was  contemplating  my  new  flatboat,  and  wonder 
ing  whether  I  could  make  it  strong  or  improve  it  in 
any  particular,  when  two  men  came  down  to  the  shore 
in. carriages  with  trunks,  and  looking  at  the  different 
boats  singled  out  mine,  and  asked,  'Who  owns  this?1 
I  answered,  somewhat  modestly,  4I  do.'  'Will  you/ 
said  one  of  them,  'take  us  and  our  trunks  out  to  the 


STORIES  OF  LINCOLN'S  EARLY  LIFE.     53 

steamer?'  'Certainly,'  said  I.  I  was  very  glad  to  have 
the  chance  of  earning  something.  I  supposed  that 
each  of  them  would  give  me  one  or  two  or  three  bits. 
The  trunks  were  put  on  my  flatboat,  the  passengers 
seated  themselves  on  the  trunks,  and  I  sculled  them 
out  to  the  steamboat. 

"They  got  on  board,  and  I  lifted  up  their  heavy 
trunks,  and  put  them  on  deck.  The  steamer  was 
about  to  put  on  steam  again,  when  I  called  out  that 
they  had  forgotten  to  pay  me.  Each  of  them  took 
from  his  pocket  a  silver  half-dollar,  and  threw  it  on  the 
floor  of  my  boat.  I  could  scarcely  believe  my  eyes 
when  I  picked  up  the  money.  Gentlemen,  you  may 
think  it  was  a  very  little  thing,  and  in  these  days  it 
seems  to  me  a  trifle;  but  it  was  a  most  important 
incident  in  my  life.  I  could  scarcely  credit,  that  I,  a 
poor  boy,  had  earned  a  dollar.  The  world  seemed 
wider  and  fairer  before  me.  I  was  a  more  hopeful  and 
confident  being  from  that  time." 


YOUNG  LINCOLN  "PULLSZFODDER"  TWO  DAYS  FOR 
A  DAMAGED  BOOK. 

The  following  incident,  illustrating  several  traits 
already  developed  in  the  early  boyhc^d  of  Lincoln,  is 
vouched  for  by  a  citizen  of  Evansville,  Ind.,  who  knew 
him  in  the  days  referred  to : 

In  his  eagerness  to  acquire  knowledge,  young  Lin 
coln  had  borrowed  of  Mr.  Crawford,  a  neighboring 
farmer,  a  copy  of  Weem's  Life  of  Washington — the 
only  one  known  to  be  in  existence  in  that  region  of  the 
country.  Before  he  had  finished  reading  the  book,  it 


54    STORIES  OF  LINCOLN'S  EARLY  LIFE. 

had  been  left,  by  a  not  unnatural  oversight,  in  a  win 
dow.  Meantime,  a  rain  storm  came  on  and  the  book 
was  so  thoroughly  wet  as  to  make  it  nearly  worthless. 
This  mishap  caused  him  much  pain ;  but  he  went,  in 
all  honesty,  to  Mr.  Crawford  with  the  ruined  book, 
explained  the  calamity  that  had  happened  through  his 
neglect,  and  offered,  not  having  sufficient  money,  to 
"work  out"  the  value  of  the  book. 

"Well,  Abe,"  said  Mr.  Crawford,  after  due  delibera 
tion,  "as  if,'s  you,  I  won't  be  hard  on  you.  Just  come 
over  and  pull  fodder  for  me  two  days,  and  we  will  call 
our  accounts  even." 

The  offer  was  readily  accepted,  and  the  engagement 
literally  fulfilled.  As  a  boy,  no  less  than  since,  Abra 
ham  had  an  honorable  conscientiousness,  integrity, 
honesty,  and  an  ardent  love  of  knowledge. 


YOUNG  LINCOLN  NARROWLY  ESCAPES  DEATH. 

A  little  incident  occurred  while  young  Lincoln  lived 
in  Indiana,  which  illustrates  the  early  hardships  and 
surroundings  to  which  he  was  subjected.  On  one  occa 
sion  he  was  obliged  to  take  his  grist  upon  the  back  of 
his  father's  horse,  and  go  fifty  miles  to  get  it  ground. 
The  mill  itself  was  very  rude,  and  driven  by  horse 
power,  the  customers  were  obliged  to  wait  their 
"turn,"  without  reference  to  their  distance  from  home, 
and  then  used  their  own  horse  to  propel  the  machinery. 
On  this  occasion,  Abraham,  having  arrived  at  his  turn, 
fastened  his  mare  to  the  lever,  and  was  following  her 
closely  upon  her  rounds,  when,  urging  her  with  the 
switch,  and  "clucking"  to  her  in  the  usual  way,  he 


LINCOLN   AS    A    RAIL    SPLITTER. 


.STORIES  OF  LINCOLN'S  EARLY  LIFE.     57 

received  a  kick  from  her  which  prostrated  him,  and 
made  him  insensible.  With  the  first  instant  of  return 
ing  consciousness,  he  finished  the  cluck,  which  he  had 
commenced  when  he  received  the  kick  (a  fact  for  the 
psychologist),  and  with  the  next  he  probably  thought 
about  getting  home,  where  he  arrived  at  last,  battered, 
but  ready  for  further  service. 


NO  VICES— FEW  VIRTUES. 

Riding  at  one  time  in  the  stage,  with  an  old  Ken- 
tuckian  who  was  returning  from  Missouri,  Lincoln 
excited  the  old  gentleman's  surprise  by  refusing  to 
accept  either  of  tobacco  or  French  brandy. 

When  they  separated  that  afternoon,  the  Kentuckian 
to  take  another  stage  bound  for  Louisville,  he  shook 
hands  warmly  with  Lincoln,  and  said  good-humoredly, 
"See  here,  stranger,  you're  a  clever  but  strange  com 
panion.  I  may  never  see  you  again,  and  I  don't  want 
to  offend  you,  but  I  want  to  say  this:  My  experience 

has  taught  me  that  a  man  who  has  no  vices  has  d d 

few  virtues.  Good-day." 

Lincoln  enjoyed  this  reminiscence  of  his  journey, 
and  took  great  pleasure  in  relating  it. 


LINCOLN'S  PROPHECY. 

An  old  copy-book  of  Lincoln's  has  the  following, 
written  when  he  was  fourteen  years  old : 

"  'Tis  Abraham  Lincoln  holds  the  pen, 
He  will  be  good,  but  God  knows  when!" 


58    STORIES  OF  LINCOLN'S  EARLY  LIFE. 

HOW  LINCOLN   THRASHED   A   BULLY  AND   MADE  A 
LIFELONG  FRIEND. 

While  showing  goods  to  two  or  three  women  in 
Offutt's  store  one  day,  a  bully  came  in  and  began  to 
talk  in  an  offensive  manner,  using  much  profanity, 
and  evidently  wishing  to  provoke  a  quarrel.  Lincoln 
leaned  over  the  counter,  and  begged  him,  as  ladies 
were  present,  not  to  indulge  in  such  talk.  The  bully 
retorted  that  the  opportunity  had  come  for  which  he 
had  long  sought,  and  he  would  like  to  see  the  man  who 
could  hinder  him  from  saying  anything  he  might 
choose  to  say.  Lincoln,  still  cool,  told  him  that  if  he 
would  wait  until  the  ladies  had  retired  he  would  hear 
what  he  had  to  say,  and  give  him  any  satisfaction  he 
desired. 

As  soon  as  the  women  were  gone,  the  man  became 
furious.  Lincoln  heard  his  boasts  and  abuse  for  a 
time,  and,  finding  he  was  not  to  be  put  off  without  a 
fight,  said:  "Well,  if  you  must  be  whipped,  I  suppose 
I  may  as  well  whip  you  as  any  other  man. ' '  This  was 
just  what  the  bully  had  been  seeking,  he  said,  so  out 
of  doors  they  went,  and  Lincoln  made  short  work  of 
him.  He  threw  him  upon  the  ground,  held  him  there 
as  if  he  had  been  a  child,  and  gathering  some  "smart- 
weed"  which  grew  upon  the  spot,  rubbed  it  into  his 
face  and  eyes,  until  the  fellow  bellowed  with  pain. 
Lincoln  did  all  this  without  a  particle  of  anger,  and, 
when  the  job  was  finished,  went  immediately  for 
xvater,  washed  his  victim's  face,  and  did  everything  he 
could  to  alleviate  his  distress.  The  upshot  of  the 
matter  was  that  the  man  became  his  fast  and  lifelong 
friend,  and  was  a  better  man  from  that  day.  It  was 


STORIES  OP  LINCOLN'S  EARLY  LIFE.     59 

impossible  then,  and  it  always  remained,  for  Lincoln 
to  cherish  resentment  and  revenge. 


AN  INCIDENT  FROM   LINCOLN'S   EXPERIENCE  ON  A 
MISSISSIPPI  FLATBOAT. 

At  the  age  of  nineteen,  Abraham  made  his  second 
essay  in  navigation,  and  at  this  time  caught  something 
more  than  a  glimpse  of  the  great  world  in  which  he 
was  destined  to  play  so  important  a  part.  A  trading 
neighbor  applied  to  him  to  take  charge  of  a  flatboat 
and  its  cargo,  and,  in  company  with  his  own  son,  to 
take  it  to  the  sugar  plantations  near  New  Orleans. 
The  entire  business  of  the  trip  was  placed  in  Abra 
ham's  hands.  The  fact  tells  its  own  story  touching 
the  young  man's  reputation  for  capacity  and  integrity. 
He  had  never  made  the  trip,  knew  nothing  of  the 
journey,  was  unaccustomed  to  business  transactions, 
had  never  been  much  upon  the  river;  but  his  tact, 
ability  and  honesty  were  so  trusted  that  the  trader  was 
willing  to  risk  his  cargo  and  his  son  in  Lincoln's  care. 

The  incidents  of  a  trip  like  this  were  not  likely  to  be 
exciting,  but  there  were  many  social  chats  with  the 
settlers  and  hunters  along  the  banks  of  the  Ohio  and 
the  Mississippi,  and  there  was  much  hailing  of  similar 
craft  afloat.  Arriving  at  a  sugar  plantation  some 
where  between  Natchez  and  New  Orleans,  the  boat 
was  pulled  in,  and  tied  to  the  shore  for  purposes  of 
trade;  and  here  an  incident  occurred  which  was 
sufficiently  exciting,  and  one  which,  in  the  memory  of 
recent  events,  reads  somewhat  strangely.  Here  seven 
negroes  attempted  the  life  of  the  future  liberator  of 
the  race,  and  it  is  not  improbable  that  some  of  them 


60    STORIES  OF  LINCOLN'S  EARLY  LIFE. 

have  lived  to  be  emancipated  by  his  proclamation. 
Night  had  fallen,  and  the  two  tired  voyagers  had  lain 
down  on  their  hard  bed  for  sleep.  Hearing  a  noise  on 
shore,  Abraham  shouted: 

"Who's  there?" 

The  noise  continuing  and  no  one  replying,  he  sprang 
to  his  feet  and  saw  seven  negroes,  evidently  bent  on 
plunder. 

Abraham  guessed  the  errand  at  once,  and  seizing  a 
hand-spike,  rushed  towards  them,  and  knocked  one 
into  the  water  the  moment  he  touched  the  boat.  The 
second,  third,  and  fourth  who  leaped  on  board  were 
served  in  the  same  rough  way.  Seeing  that  they  were 
not  likely  to  make  headway  in  their  thieving  enter 
prise,  the  remainder  turned  to  flee.  Abraham  and  his 
companion,  growing  excited  and  warm  with  their 
work,  leaped  on  shore,  and  followed  them.  Both  were 
too  swift  on  foot  for  the  negroes,  and  all  of  them 
received  a  severe  pounding.  They  returned  to  their 
boat  just  as  the  others  escaped  from  the  water,  but  the 
latter  fled  into  the  darkness  as  fast  as  their  legs  could 
carry  them.  Abraham  and  his  fellow  in  the  fight 
were  both  injured,  but  not  disabled.  Not  being- 
armed,  and  unwilling1  to  wait  until  the  negroes  had 
received  reinforcements,  they  cut  adrift,  and  floated 
down  a  mile  or  two,  tied  up  to  the  bank  again,  and 
watched  and  waited  for  the  morning. 

The  trip  was  brought  at  length  to  a  successful  end. 
The  cargo,  "load,"  as  they  called  it,  was  all  disposed 
of  for  money,  the  boat  itself  sold  for  lumber,  and  the 
young  men  retraced  the  passage,  partly,  at  least,  on 
shore  and  on  foot,  occupying  several  weeks  in  the 
difficult  and  tedious  journey. 


STORIES  OF  LINCOLN'S  EARLY  LIFE.     61 

"HONEST  ABE"  AS  A  COUNTRY  STOREKEEPER. 

Lincoln  could  not  rest  for  an  instant  under  the  con 
sciousness  that  he  had,  even  unwittingly,  defrauded 
anybody.  On  one  occasion,  while  clerking  in  Offutt's 
store,  at  New  Salem,  111.,  he  sold  a  woman  a  little  bale 
of  goods,  amounting  in  value  by  the  reckoning  to  two 
dollars  and  twenty  cents.  He  received  the  money,  and 
the  woman  went  away.  On  adding  the  items  of  the 
bill  again  to  make  himself  sure  of  correctness,  he 
found  that  he  had  taken  six  and  a  quarter  cents  too 
much.  It  was  night,  and,  closing  and  locking  the 
store,  he  started  out  on  foot,  a  distance  of  two  or  three 
miles,  for  the  house  of  his  defrauded  customer,  and, 
delivering  over  to  her  the  sum  whose  possession  had 
so  much  troubled  him,  went  home  satisfied. 

On  another  occasion,  just  as  he  was  closing  the  store 
for  the  night,  a  woman  entered,  and  asked  for  a  half 
pound  of  tea.  The  tea  was  weighed  out  and  paid  for, 
and  the  store  was  left  for  the  night.  The  next  morn 
ing  Lincoln  entered  to  begin  the  duties  of  the  day, 
when  he  discovered  a  four-ounce  weight  on  the  scales. 
He  saw  at  once  that  he  had  made  a  mistake,  and, 
shutting  the  store,  he  took  a  long  walk  before  break 
fast  to  deliver  the  remainder  of  the  tea.  These  are 
very  humble  incidents,  but  they  illustrate  the  man's 
perfect  conscientiousness  —  his  sensitive  honesty — 
better,  perhaps,  than  they  would  if  they  were  of  greater 
moment. 


"HONEST  ABE"  AS  VILLAGE  POSTMASTER. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  appointed  postmaster  by  President 
Jackson.     The  office  was  too  insignificant  to  be  con- 


62    STORIES  OF  LINCOLN'S  EARLY  LIFE. 

side  red  politically,  and  it  was  given  to  the  young  man 
because  everybody  liked  him,  and  because  he  was  the 
only  man  who  was  willing  to  take  it  who  could  make  out 
the  returns.  He  was  exceedingly  pleased  with  the 
appointment,  because  it  gave  him  a  chance  to  read 
every  newspaper  that  was  taken  in  the  vicinity.  He 
had  never  been  able  to  get  half  the  newspapers  he 
wanted  before,  and  the  office  gave  him  the  prospect  of 
a  constant  feast.  Not  wishing  to  be  tied  to  the  office, 
as  it  yielded  him  no  revenue  that  would  reward  him 
for  the  confinement,  he  made  a  post-office  of  his  hat. 
Whenever  he  went  out  the  letters  were  placed  in  his 
hat.  When  an  anxious  looker  for  a  letter  found  the 
postmaster,  he  had  found  his  office;  and  the  public 
officer,  taking  off  his  hat,  looked  over  his  mail  wher 
ever  the  public  might  find  him.  He  kept  the  office 
until  it  was  discontinued,  or  removed  to  Petersburg. 

One  of  the  most  beautiful  exhibitions  of  Mr.  Lin 
coln's  rigid  honesty  occurred  in  connection  with  the 
settlement  of  his  accounts  with  the  Post-office  Depart 
ment,  several  years  afterward. 

It  was  after  he  had  become  a  lawyer,  and  had  been  a 
legislator.  He  had  passed  through  a  period  of  great 
poverty,  had  acquired  his  education  in  the  law  in  the 
midst  of  many  perplexities,  inconveniences,  and  hard 
ships,  and  had  met  with  temptations  such  as  few  men 
could  resist,  to  make  a  temporary  use  of  any  money  he 
might  have  in  his  hands.  One  day,  seated  in  the  law 
office  of  his  partner,  the  agent  of  the  Post-office 
Department  entered,  and  inquired  if  Abraham  Lincoln 
was  within.  Mr.  Lincoln  responded  to  his  name,  and 
was  informed  that  the  agent  had  called  to  collect  the 
balance  due  the  Department  since  the  discontinuance 


STORIES  OF  LINCOLN'S  EARLY  LIFE.     63 

of  the  New  Salem  office.  A  shade  of  perplexity  passed 
over  Mr.  Lincoln's  face,  which  did  not  escape  the 
notice  of  friends  present.  One  of  them  said  at  once: 

''Lincoln,  if  you  are  in  want  of  money,  let  us  help 
you." 

He  made  no  reply,  but  suddenly  rose,  and  pulled  out 
from  a  pile  of  books  a  little  old  trunk,  and,  returning 
to  the  table,  asked  the  agent  how  much  the  amount  of 
his  debt  was.  The  sum  was  named,  and  then  Mr. 
Lincoln  opened  the  trunk,  pulled  out  a  little  package 
of  coin  wrapped  in  a  cotton  rag,  and  counted  out  the 
exact  sum,  amounting  to  something  more  than  seven 
teen  dollars.  After  the  agent  had  left  the  room,  he 
remarked  quietly  that  he  had  never  used  any  man's 
money  but  his  own.  Although  this  sum  had  been  in 
his  hands  during  all  these  years,  he  had  never  regarded 
it  as  available,  even  for  any  temporary  use  of  his  own. 


A  FLATBOAT    INCIDENT    ILLUSTRATING    LINCOLN'S 
READY  INGENUITY. 

Governor  Yates,  of  Illinois,  in  a  speech  at  Spring 
field,  quoted  one  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  early  friends — W.  T. 
Green — as  having  said  that  the  first  time  he  ever  saw 
Mr.  Lincoln,  he  was  in  the  Sangamon  River  with  his 
trousers  rolled  up  five  feet,  more  or  less,  trying  to 
pilot  a  flatboat  over  a  mill-dam.  The  boat  was  so  full 
of  water  that  it  was  hard  to  manage.  Lincoln  got  the 
prow  over,  and  then,  instead  of  waiting  to  bail  the 
water  out,  bored  a  hole  through  the  projecting  part 
and  let  it  run  out ;  affording  a  forcible  illustration  of 
the  ready  ingenuity  of  the  future  President  In  the 
quick  invention  of  moral  expedients. 


64    STORIES  OF  LINCOLN'S  EARLY  LIFE. 

A  WRESTLING  MATCH. 

There  lived,  at  the  time  young  Lincoln  resided  at 
New  Salem,  111.,  in  and  around  the  village,  a  band  of 
rollicking  fellows,  or,  more  properly,  roistering 
rowdies,  known  as  the  "Clary's  Grove  Boys."  The 
special  tie  that  united  them  was  physical  courage  and 
prowess.  These  fellows,  although  they  embraced  in 
their  number  many  men  who  have  since  become 
respectable  and  influential,  were  wild  and  rough  beyond 
toleration  in  any  community  not  made  up  like  that 
which  produced  them.  They  pretended  to  be  "regu 
lators,  ' '  and  were  the  terror  of  all  who  did  not  acknowl 
edge  their  rule ;  and  their  mode  of  securing  allegiance 
was  by  flogging  every  man  who  failed  to  acknowledge 
it. 

They  took  it  upon  themselves  to  try  the  mettle  of 
every  new-comer,  and  to  learn  the  sort  of  stuff  he  was 
made  of. 

Some  of  their  number  was  appointed  to  fight, 
wrestle,  or  run  a  foot-race  with  each  .incoming 
stranger.  Of  course,  Abraham  Lincoln  was  obliged 
to  pass  the  ordeal. 

Perceiving  that  he  was  a  man  who  would  not  easily 
be  floored,  they  selected  their  champion,  Jack  Arm 
strong,  and  imposed  upon  him  the  task  of  laying  Lin 
coln  upon  his  back. 

There  is  no  evidence  that  Lincoln  was  an  unwilling 
party  to  the  sport,  for  it  was  what  he  had  always  been 
accustomed  to.  The  bout  was  entered  upon,  but 
Armstrong  soon  discovered  that  he  had  met  more  than 
his  match. 

The  boys  were  looking  on,  and  seeing  that  their 
champion  was  likely  to  get  the  worst  of  it,  did  after 


JTNCOLN'S  EARLY  HOME  AT   ELIZABETH-TOWN,  HARDIN  co.,  KY.      FROM  A   PHOTO 

GRAPH   TAKEN   IN    1895. 


STORIES  OF  LINCOLN'S  EARLY  LIFE.     67 

the  manner  of  such  irresponsible  bands.  They  gath 
ered  around  Lincoln,  struck  and  disabled  him,  and 
then  Armstrong,  by  "legging"  him,  got  him  down. 

Most  men  would  have  been  indignant,  not  to  say 
furiously  angry,  under  such  foui  treatment  as  this;  but 
if  Lincoln  was  either,  he  did  not  show  it.  Getting  up 
in  perfect  good  humor,  he  fell  to  laughing  over  his  dis 
comfiture,  and  joking  about  it.  They  had  all  calcu 
lated  on  making  him  angry,  and  they  intended,  with 
th_?  amiable  spirit  which  characterized  the  "Clary's 
Grove  Boys,"  to  give  him  a  terrible  drubbing.  They 
were  disappointed,  and,  in  their  admiration  of  him, 
immediately  invited  him  to  become  one  of  the  com 
pany. 


THE  FIRST  MEETING  OF  A  FUTURE  PRESIDENT 
AND  GOVERNOR. 

Lincoln  was  a  marked  and  a  peculiar  young  man. 
People  talked  about  him.  His  studious  habits,  his 
greed  for  information,  his  thorough  mastery  of  the 
difficulties  of  every  new  position  in  which  he  was 
placed,  his  intelligence  touching  all  matters  of  public 
concern,  his  unwearying  good-nature,  his  skill  in  tell 
ing  a  story,  his  great  athletic  power,  his  quaint,  odd 
ways,  his  uncouth  appearance,  all  tended  to  bring 
him  in  sharp  contrast  with  the  dull  mediocrity  by 
which  he  was  surrounded.  Denton  Offutt,  his  old 
employer  in  the  store,  said,  after  having  had  a  conver 
sation  with  Lincoln,  that  the  young  man  "had  talent 
enough  in  him  to  make  a  President. ' '  In  every  circle 
in  which  he  found  himself,  whether  refined  or  coarse, 
he  was  always  the  center  of  attraction. 


68    STORIES  OF  LINCOLN'S  EARLY  LIFE. 

William  G.  Greene  says  that  when  he  (Greene)  was 
a  member  of  the  Illinois  College,  he  brought  home 
with  him,  on  a  vacation,  Richard  Yates,  afterwards 
Governor  of  the  State,  and  some  other  boys,  and,  in 
order  to  entertain  them,  took  them  tip  to  see  Lincoln. 
He  found  him  in  his  usual  position  and  at  his  usual 
occupation.  He  was  flat  on  his  back,  on  a  cellar  door, 
reading  a  newspaper.  This  was  the  manner  in  which 
a  President  of  the  United  States  and  a  Governor  of 
Illinois  became  acquainted  with  each  other.  Mr. 
Greene  says  that  Lincoln  then  repeated  the  whole  of 
Burns,  and  was  a  devoted  student  of  Shakespeare. 
So  the  rough  backwoodsman,  self-educated,  enter 
tained  the  college  boys,  and  was  invited  to  dine  with 
them  on  bread  and  milk.  How  he  managed  to  upset 
his  bowl  of  milk  is  not  a  matter  of  history,  but  the  fact 
that  he  did  so,  as  is  the  further  fact  that  Greene's 
mother,  who  loved  Lincoln,  tried  to  smooth  over  the 
accident  and  to  relieve  the  young  man's  embarrass 
ment. 


LINCOLN'S  NAME  GOOD  FOR  A  BED. 

In  the  year  1855  or  1856,  George  B.  Lincoln,  Esq., 
of  Brooklyn,  was  traveling  through  the  west  in  connec 
tion  with  a  large  New  York  dry-goods  establishment. 
He  found  himself  one  night  in  a  town  on  the  Illinois 
River,  by  the  name  of  Naples,  The  only  tavern  of  the 
place  had  evidently  been  constructed  with  reference  to 
business  on  a  small  scale.  Poor  as  the  prospect  seemed, 
Mr.  Lincoln  had  no  alternative  but  to  put  up  at  the 
place. 


STORIES  OF  LINCOLN'S  EARLY  LIFE.     6g 

The  supper- room  was  also  used  as  a  lodging-room. 
Mr.  Lincoln  told  his  host  that  he  thought  he  would  I' go 
to  bed." 

4 'Bed!"  echoed  the  landlord.  "There  is  no  bed  for 
you  in  this  house  unless  you  sleep  with  that  man  yon 
der.  He  has  the  only  one  we  have  to  spare." 

"Well,"  returned  Mr.  Lincoln,  "the  gentleman  has 
possession,  and  perhaps  would  not  like  a  bed-fellow.' 

Upon  this  a  grizzly  head  appeared  out  of  the  pillows, 
and  said: 

"What  is  your  name?" 

"They  call  me  Lincoln  at  home,"  was  the  reply. 

"Lincoln!"  repeated  the  stranger;  "any  connection 
of  our  Illinois  Abraham?" 

"No,"  replied  Mr.  Lincoln.     "I  fear  not." 

"Well,"  said  the  old  gentleman,  "I  will  let  any  man 
by  the  name  of  'Lincoln'  sleep  with  me,  just  for  the 
sake  of  the  name.  You  have  heard  of  Abe?"  he 
inquired. 

"Oh, -yes,  very  often,"  replied  Mr.  Lincoln.  "No 
man  could  travel  far  in  this  State  without  hearing  of 
him,  and  I  would  be  very  glad  to  claim  connection  if  I 
could  do  so  honestly. ' ' 

"Well,"  said  the  old  gentleman,  "my  name  is  Sim 
mons.  'Abe'  and  I  used  to  live  and  work  together 
when  young  men.  Many  a  job  of  wood-cutting  and 
rail-splitting  have  I  done  up  with  him.  Abe  Lincoln 
was  the  likeliest  boy  in  God's  world.  He  would  work 
all  day  as  hard  as  any  of  us — and  study  by  firelight  in 
the  log-house  half  the  night;  and  in  this  way  he  made 
himself  a  thorough,  practical  surveyor.  Once,  during 
those  days,  I  was  in  the  upper  part  of  the  State,  and  I 
met  General  Ewing,  whom  President  Jackson  had  sent 


70    STORIES  OF  LINCOLN'S  EARLY  LIFE. 

to  the  Northwest  to  make  surveys.  I  told  him  about 
Abe  Lincoln,  what  a  student  he  was,  and  that  I  wanted 
he  should  give  me  a  job.  He  looked  over  his  memo 
randum,  and,  holding  out  a' paper,  said: 

'  'There  is County  must  be  surveyed;  if  your 

friend  can  do  the  work  properly,  I  shall  be  glad  to  have 
him  undertake  it — the  compensation  will  be  six  hun 
dred  dollars. ' 

"Pleased  as  I  could  be,  I  hastened  to  Abe,  after  I 
got  home,  with  an  account  of  what  I  had  secured  for 
him.  He  was  sitting  before  'the  fire  in  the  log-cabin 
when  I  told  him;  and  what  do  you  think  was  his 
answer?  When  I  finished,  he  looked  up  very  quietly, 
and  said: 

!  'Mr.  Simmons,  I  thank  you  very  sincerely  for  your 
kindness,  but  I  don't  think  I  will  undertake  the  job.' 

"  'In  the  name  of  wonder,'  said  I,  'why?  Six  hun 
dred  does  not  grow  upon  every  bush  out  here  in 
Illinois. ' 

"  'I  know  that,'  said  Abe,  'and  I  need  the  money  bad 
enough,  Simmons,  as  you  know ;  but  I  have  never  been 
under  obligation  to  a  Democratic  Administration,  and 
I  never  intend  to  be  so  long  as  I  can  get  my  living 
another  way.  General  Ewing  must  find  another  man 
to  do  his  work. '  ' 

Mr.  Carpenter  related  this  story  to  the  President  one 
day,  and  asked  him  if  it  were  true. 

"Pollard  Simmons!"  said  Lincoln.  "Well  do  I 
remember  him.  It  is  correct  about  our  working 
together,  but  the  old  man  must  have  stretched  the 
facts  somewhat  about  the  survey  of  the  County.  I 
think  I  should  have  been  very  glad  of  the  job  at  the 
time,  no  matter  what  Administration  was  in  power." 


STORIES  OF  LINCOLN'S  EARLY  LIFE.      71 

Notwithstanding"  this,  however,  Mr.  Carpenter  was 
inclined  to  believe  Mr.  Simmons  was  not  far  out  of  the 
way,  and  thought  this  seemed  very  characteristic  of 
what  Abraham  Lincoln  may  be  supposed  to  have  been 
at  twenty-three  or  twenty-five  years  of  age. 


AN   UNSUCCESSFUL  VENTURE   AS   A  MERCHANT   IN 
NEW  SALEM. 

It  is  interesting  to  recall  the  fact  that  at  one  time 
Mr.  Lincoln  seriously  took  into  consideration  the 
project  of  learning  the  blacksmith's  trade.  He  was 
without  means,  and  felt  the  immediate  necessity  of 
undertaking  some  business  that  would  give  him  bread. 
It  was  while  he  was  entertaining  this  project  that  an 
event  occurred  which  in  his  undetermined  state  of 
mind  seemed  to  open  a  way  to  success  in  another 
quarter. 

A  man  named  Reuben  Radford,  the  keeper  of  a 
small  store  in  the  village  of  New  Salem,  had  somehow 
incurred  the  displeasure  of  the  Clary's  Grove  Boys, 
who  had  exercised  their  4< regulating"  derogatives  by 
irregularly  breaking  his  windows.  William  G.  Greene, 
a  friend  of  young  Lincoln,  riding  by  Radford's  store 
soon  afterward,  was  hailed  by  him,  and  told  that  he 
intended  to  sell  out.  Mr.  Greene  went  into  the  store, 
and  offered  him  at  random  four  hundred  dollars  for  his 
stock.  The  offer  was  immediately  accepted. 

Lincoln  happening  in  the  next  day,  and  being 
familiar  with  the  value  of  the  goods,  Mr.  Greene  pro 
posed  to  him  to  take  an  inventory  of  the  stock,  and  see 
what  sort  of  a  bargain  he  had  made.  This  he  did,  and 


72    STORIES  OF  LINCOLN'S  EARLY  LIFE. 

it  was  found  that  the  goods  were  worth  six  hundred 
dollars.  Lincoln  then  made  him  an  offer  of  a  hundred 
and  twenty -five  dollars  for  his  bargain,  with  the  propo 
sition  that  he  and  a  man  named  Berry,  as  his  partner, 
should  take  his  (Greene's)  place  in  the  notes  given  to 
Radford.  Mr.  Greene  agreed  to  the  arrangement,  but 
Radford  declined  it,  except  on  condition  that  Greene 
would  be  their  security,  and  this  he  at  last  assented  to. 

Berry  proved  to  be  a  dissipated,  trifling  man,  and 
the  business  soon  became  a  wreck.  Mr.  Greene  was 
obliged  to  go  in  and  help  Mr.  Lincoln  close  it  up,  and 
not  only  do  this  but  pay  Radford 's  notes.  All  that 
young  Lincoln  won  from  the  store  was  some  very  valu 
able  experience,  and  the  burden  of  a  debt  to  Greene 
which,  in  conversations  with  the  latter,  he  alwa)^ 
spoke  of  as  the  national  debt.  But  this  national  debt, 
unlike  the  majority  of  those  which  bear  the  title,  was 
paid  to  the  utmost  farthing  in  after  years. 

Six  years  afterwards,  Mr.  Greene,  who  knew  nothing 
of  the  law  in  such  cases,  and  had  not  troubled  himself 
to  inquire  about  it,  and  who  had  in  the  meantime 
removed  to  Tennessee,  received  notice  from  Mr.  Lin 
coln  that  he  was  ready  to  pay  hirn  what  he  paid  for 
Berry — he  (Lincoln)  being  legally  bound  to  pay  the 
liabilities  of  his  partner. 


HOW  LINCOLN   BECAME  A  CAPTAIN   IN  THE  BLACK 
HAWK  WAR. 

In  the  threatening  aspect  of  the  Black  Hawk  War, 
Governor  Reynolds  issued  a  call  for  volunteers,  and 
among  the  companies  that  immediately  responded  was 


STORIES  OK  LINCOLN'S  EARLY  LIFE.     73 

one  from  Menard  County,  Illinois.  Many  of  the 
volunteers  were  from  New  Salem  and  Clary's  Grove, 
and  Lincoln,  being  out  of  business,  was  first  to  enlist. 
The  company  being  full,  they  held  a  meeting  at  Rich- 
land  for  the  election  of  officers.  Lincoln  had  won 
many  hearts,  and  they  told  him  that  he  must  be  their 
captain.  It  was  an  office  that  he  did  not  aspire  to,  and 
one  for  which  he  felt  that  he  had  no  special  fitness; 
but  he  consented  to  be  a  candidate.  There  was  but 
one  other  candidate  for  the  office  (a  Mr.  Kirkpatrick), 
and  he  was  one  of  the  most  influential  men  of  the 
County.  Previously,  Kirkpatrick  had  been  an  em 
ployer  of  Lincoln,  and  was  so  overbearing  in  his  treat 
ment  of  the  young  man  that  the  latter  left  him. 

The  simple  mode  of  their  electing  their  captain, 
adopted  by  the  company,  was  by  placing  the  candi 
dates  apart,  and  telling  the  men  to  go  and  stand  with 
the  one  they  preferred.  Lincoln  and  his  competitor 
took  their  positions,  and  then  the  word  was  given.  At 
least  three  out  of  every  four  went  to  Lincoln  at  once. 
When  it  was  seen  by  those  who  had  arranged  them 
selves  with  the  other  candidate  that  Lincoln  was  the 
choice  of  the  majority  of  the  company,  they  left  their 
places,  one  by  one,  and  came  over  to  the  successful 
side,  until  Lincoln's  opponent  in  the  friendly  strife 
was  left  standing  almost  alone. 

"I  felt  badly  to  see  him  cut  so,"  says  a  witness  of 
the  scene. 

Here  was  an  opportunity  for  revenge.  The  humble 
laborer  was  his  employer's  captain,  but  the  oppor 
tunity  was  never  improved.  Mr.  Lincoln  frequently 
confessed  that  no  subsequent  success  of  his  life  had 
given  him  half  the  satisfaction  that  this  election  did. 


74    STORIES  OF  LINCOLN'S  EARLY  LIFE. 

He  had  achieved  public  recognition;  and  to  one  so 
humbly  bred,  the  distinction  was  inexpressibly  delight 
ful.  

LINCOLN  APPLIES  FOR  A  PATENT. 

That  he  had  enough  mechanical  genius  to  make  him 
a  good  mechanic  there  is  no  doubt.  With  such  rude 
tools  as  were  at  his  command  he  had  made  cabins 
and  flatboats;  and  after  his  mind  had  become 
absorbed  in  public  and  professional  affairs,  he  often 
recurred  to  his  mechanical  dreams  for  amusement. 
One  of  his  dreams  took  form,  and  he  endeavored  to 
make  a  practical  matter  of  it.  He  had  had  experience 
in  the  early  navigation  of  the  Western  rivers.  One  of 
the  most  serious  hindrances  to  this  navigation  was  low 
water,  and  the  lodgment  of  the  varioiis  craft  on  the 
shifting  shoals  and  bars  with  which  these  rivers 
abound.  He  undertook  to  contrive  an  apparatus 
which,  folded  to  the  hull  of  the  boat  like  a  bellows, 
might  be  inflated  on  occasions,  and,  by  its  levity, 
lifted  over  any  obstruction  upon  which  it  might  rest. 
On  this  contrivance,  illustrated  by  a  model  whittled 
out  by  himself,  and  now  preserved  in  the  Patent  Office 
in  Washington,  he  secured  letters  patent ;  but  it  is  cer 
tain  that  the  navigation  of  the  Western  rivers  was  not 
revolutionized  by  it. 


LINCOLN  THE  TALLEST  OF  THE  "LONG  NINE." 

The  Sangamon  County  delegation  to  the  Illinois 
Legislature,  in  1834,  of  which  Lincoln  was  a  member, 
consisting  of  nine  representatives,  was  so  remarkable 
for  the  physical  altitude  of  its  members  that  they  were 


STORIES  OF  LINCOLN'S  EARLY  LIFE.     75 

known  as  "The  Long  Nine."  Not  a  member  of  the 
number  was  less  than  six  feet  high,  and  Lincoln  was 
the  tallest  of  the  nine,  as  he  was  the  leading  man 
intellectually  in  and  out  the  House. 

Among  those  who  composed  the  House  were  Gen. 
John  A.  McClernand,  afterward  a  member  of  Con 
gress;  Jesse  K.  DeBois,  afterwards  Auditor  of  the 
State;  James  Semple,  afterwards  twice  the  Speaker  of 
the  House  of  Representatives,  and  subsequently 
United  States  Senator;  Robert  Smith,  afterwards 
member  of  Congress ;  John  Hogan,  afterwards  a  mem 
ber  of  Congress  from  St.  Louis ;  Gen.  James  Shields, 
afterwards  United  States  Senator  (who  died  recently) ; 
John  Dement,  who  has  since  been  Treasurer  o£  the 
State;  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  whose  subsequent  career 
is  familiar  to  all ;  Newton  Cloud,  President  of  the  Con 
vention  which  framed  the  present  State  Constitution 
of  Illinois;  John  J.  Hardin,  who  fell  at  Buena  Vista; 
John  Moore,  afterward  Lieutenant-Governor  of  the 
State;  William  A.  Richardson,  subsequently  United 
States  Senator,  and  William  McMurtry,  who  has  since 
been  Lieutenant-Governor  of  the  State. 

This  list  does  not  embrace  all  who  had  then,  or  who 
have  since  been  distinguished,  but  it  is  large  enough  to 
show  that  Lincoln  was,  during  the  term  of  this  Legis 
lature,  thrown  into  association  and  often  into  antag 
onism,  with  the  brightest  men  of  the  new  State. 


LINCOLN'S  ENTRANCE  INTO  PUBLIC  LIFE. 

In  1834,  Lincoln  was  a  candidate  for  the  Legislature, 
and  was  elected  by  the  highest  vote  cast  for  any  candi 
date.  Major  John  T.  Stuart,  an  officer  in  the  Black 


7C    STORIES  OF  LINCOLN'S  EARLY  LIFE. 

Hawk  War,  and  whose  acquaintance  Lincoln  made  at 
Beardstown,  was  also  elected.  Major  Stuart  had 
already  conceived  the  highest  opinion  of  the  young 
man,  and  seeing  much  of  him  during  the  canvass  for 
the  election,  privately  advised  him  to  study  law. 
Stuart  was  himself  engaged  in  a  large  and  lucrative 
practice  at  Springfield. 

Lincoln  said  he  was  poor — that  he  had  no  money  to 
buy  books,  or  to  live  where  books  might  be  borrowed 
or  used.  Major  Stuart  offered  to  lend  him  all  he 
needed,  and  he  decided  to  take  the  kind  lawyer's 
advice,  and  accept  his  offer.  At  the  close  of  the  can 
vass  which  resulted  in  his  election,  he  walked  to  Spring 
field,  borrowed  "a  load"  of  books  of  Stuart,  and  took 
them  home  with  him  to  New  Salem. 

Here  he  began  the  study  of  law  in  good  earnest, 
though  with  no  preceptor.  He  studied  while  he  had 
bread,  and  then  started  out  on  a  surveying  tour  to  win 
the  money  that  would  buy  more. 

One  who  remembers  his  habits  during  this  period 
says  that  he  went,  day  after  day,  for  weeks,  and  sat 
under  an  oak  tree  near  New  Salein  and  read,  moving 
around  to  keep  in  the  shade  as  the  sun  moved.  He 
was  so  much  absorbed  that  some  people  thought  and 
said  he  was  crazy. 

Not  unfrequently  he  met  and  passed  his  best  friends 
without  noticing  them.  The  truth  was  that  he  had 
found  the  pursuit  of  his  life,  and  had  become  very 
much  in  earnest. 

During  Lincoln's  campaign  he  possessed  and  rode  a 
horse,  to  procure  which  he  had  quite  likely  sold  his 
compass  and  chain,  for,  as  soon  as  the  canvass  had 
closed,  he  sold  the  horse  and  bought  these  instruments, 


.^^      .        ^^ 

j^~«'.    '  •"'':"•""  .;'.;  •"•--  *—>**• 


LINCOLN'S  FIRST  HOME  IN  ILLINOIS. 


LINCOLN'S  HOME  IN  SPRINGFIELD,  ILL. 


STORIES  OF  LINCOLN'S  EARLY  LIFE.     79 

indispensable  to  him  in  the  only  pursuit  by  which  he 
could  make  his  living. 

When  the  time  for  the  assembly  of  the  Legislature 
had  arrived  Lincoln  dropped  his  law  books,  shouldered 
his  pack,  and,  on  foot,  trudged  to  Vandalia,  then  the 
Capital  of  the  State,  about  a  hundred  miles,  to  make 
his  entrance  into  public  life. 


INCIDENT  IN  THE  BLACK  HAWK  WAR. 

An  old  Indian  strayed,  hungry  and  helpless,  into  the 
camp  one  day.  The  soldiers  were  conspiring  to  kill 
him  as  a  spy. 

A  letter  from  General  Cass,  recommending  him,  for 
his  past  kind  and  faithful  service  to  the  whites,  the 
trembling  old  savage  drew  from  beneath  the  folds  of 
his  blankets;  but  failed  in  any  degree  to  appease  the 
wrath  of  the  men  who  confronted  him.  "Make  an 
example  of  him,"  they  exclaimed;  "the  letter  is  a 
forgery,  and  he  is  a  spy. ' ' 

They  might  have  put  their  threats  into  execution  had 
not  the  tall  form  of  their  captain,  his  face  swarthy  with 
resolution  and  rage,  interposed  itself  between  them  and 
their  defenseless  victim. 

Lincoln's  determined  look  and  demand  that  it  must 
not  be  done  were  enough.  They  sullenly  desisted,  and 
the  Indian,  unmolested,  continued  on  his  way. 


COOL  UNDER  DIFFICULTIES. 

At  one  time  Major  Hill  charged  Lincoln  with  mak 
ing  defamatory  remarks  about  his  wife. 


8o    STORIES  OF  LINCOLN'S  EARLY  LIFE. 

Hill  was  insulting  in  his  language  to  Lincoln,  whc 
never  lost  his  temper. 

When  he  saw  his  chance  to  edge  a  word  in,  Lincoln 
denied  emphatically  using  the  language  or  anything 
like  that  attributed  to  him. 

He  entertained,  he  insisted,  a  high  regard  for  Mrs. 
Hill,  and  the  only  thing  he  knew  to  her  discredit  was 
the  fact  that  she  was  Major  Hill's  wife. 


"THANK  YOU,  I  NEVER  DRINK." 

When  Lincoln  was  in  the  Black  Hawk  War  as  cap 
tain,  the  volunteer  soldiers  drank  in  with  delight  the 
jests  and  stories  of  the  tall  captain.  ^Esop's  Fables 
were  given  a  new  dress,  and  the  tales  of  the  wild 
adventures  that  he  had  brought  from  Kentucky  and 
Indiana  were  many,  but  his  inspiration  was  never 
stimulated  by  recourse  to  the  whisky  jug.  When  his 
grateful  and  delighted  auditors  pressed  this  on  him  he 
had  one  reply :  ' '  Thank  you,  I  never  drink  it. ' ' 


THE  LINCOLN-SHIELDS  DUEL. 

The  late  General  Shields  was  Auditor  of  the  State  of 
Illinois  in  1839.  While  he  occupied  this  important 
office  he  was  involved  .in  an  "affair  of  honor"  with  a 
Springfield  lawyer — no  less  a  personage  than  Abra 
ham  Lincoln.  At  this  time,  "James  Shields,  Auditor, " 
was  the  pride  cf  the  young  Democracy,  and  was  con 
sidered  a  dashing  fellow  by  all,  the  ladies  included. 

In  the  summer  of  1842,  the  Springfield  Journal  con 
tained  some  letters  from  the  "Lost  Township,"  by  a 


STORIES  OF  LINCOLN'S  EARLY  LIFE.     81 

contributor  whose  nom  de  plume  was  "Aunt  Becca," 
which  held  up  the  gallant  young  Auditor  as  * 'a  ball 
room  dandy,  floatin'  about  on  the  earth  without  heft 
or  substance,  just  like  a  lot  of  cat  fur  where  cats  had 
been  fightin'." 

These  letters  caused  intense  excitement  in  the  town. 
Nobody  knew  or  guessed  their  authorship.  Shields 
swore  it  would  be  coffee  and  pistols  for  two  if  he  should 
find  out  who  had  been  lampooning  him  so  unmerci 
fully.  Thereupon  "Aunt  Becca"  wrote  another  letter, 
which  made  the  furnace  of  his  wrath  seven  times 
hotter  than  before,  in  which  she  made  a  very  humble 
apology,  and  offered  to  let  him  squeeze  her  hand  for 
satisfaction,  adding: 

"If  this  should  not  answer,  there  is  one  thing  more 
I  would  rather  do  than  get  a  lickin'.  I  have  all  along 
expected  to  die  a  widow;  but,  as  Mr.  Shields  is  rather 
good-looking  than  otherwise,  I  must  say  I  don't  care  if 
we  compromise  the  matter  by — really,  Mr.  Printer,  I 
can't  help  blushing — but  I  must  come  out — I — but 
widowed  modesty — well,  if  I  must,  I  must — wouldn't 
he — maybe  sorter  let  the  old  grudge  drap  if  I  was  to 
consent  to  be — be — his  wife?  I  know  he  is  a  fightin' 
man,  and  would  rather  fight  than  eat;  but  isn't 
marryin'  better  than  fightin',  though  it  does  sometimes 
run  into  it?  And  I  don't  think,  upon  the  whole,  I'd  be 
sich  a  bad  match  neither;  I'm  not  over  sixty,  and  am 
just  four  feet  three  in  my  bare  feet,  and  not  much  more 
around  the  girth;  and  for  color,  I  wouldn't  turn  my 
back  to  nary  a  girl  in  the  Lost  Townships.  But,  after 
all,  maybe  I'm  counting  my  chickens  before  they're 
hatched,  and  dreamin'  of  matrimonial  bliss  when  the 
only  alternative  reserved  for  me  may  be  a  lickin'.  Jeff 


82    STORIES  OF  LINCOLN'S  EARLY  LIFE. 

tells  me  the  way  these  fire-eaters  do  is  to  give  the 
challenged  party  the  choice  of  weapons,  which  being 
the  case,  I  tell  you  in  confidence,  I  never  fight  with 
anything  but  broomsticks  or  hot  water,  or  a  shovelful 
of  coals,  or  some  such  thing;  the  former  of  which, 
being  somewhat  like  a  shillelah,  may  not  be  so  very 
objectionable  to  him.  I  will  give  him  a  choice,  how 
ever,  in  one  thing,  and  that  is  whether,  when  we  fight, 
I  shall  wear  breeches  or  he  petticoats,  for  I  presume 
this  change  is  sufficient  to  place  us  on  an  equality. " 

Of  course,  some  one  had  to  shoulder  the  responsi 
bility  of  these  letters  after  such  a  shot.  The  real 
author  was  none  other  than  Miss  Mary  Todd,  after 
ward  the  wife  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  to  whom  she  was 
engaged,  and  who  was  in  honor  bound  to  assume,  for 
belligerent  purposes,  the  responsibility  of  her  sharp 
pen-thrusts.  Mr.  Lincoln  accepted  the  situation. 
Not  long  after,  the  two  men,  with  their  seconds,  were 
on  their  way  to  the  field  of  honor.  But  the  affair  was 
fixed  up  without  any  fighting,  and  thus  ended  in  a 
fizzle  the  Lincoln- Shields  duel  of  the  Lost  Township. 


Stories  of  Lincoln 
as  a  Lawyer. 


LINCOLN  THE  STUDENT. 

That  Lincoln's  attempt  to  make  a  lawyer  of  himself 
under  the  adverse  and  unpromising  circumstances  ex 
cited  comment  is  not  to  be  wondered  at. 

Russell  Goodby,  an  old  man  who  still  survives,  told 
the  following :  He  had  often  employed  Lincoln  to  do 
farm  work  for  him,  and  was  surprised  to  find  him  one 
day,  sitting  barefoot  on  the  summit  of  a  woodpile,  and 
attentively  reading  a  book. 

"This  being  an  unusual  thing  for  farm  hands  at  that 
early  date  to  do,  I  asked  him,"  relates  Goodby,  "what 
he  was  reading. 

"He  answered,  'I'm  studying. 

"  'Studying  what?'  I  inquired. 

<c  'Law,  sir,'  was  the  emphatic  response.  It  was 
really  too  much  for  me,  as  I  looked  at  him  sitting  there 
proud  as  Cicero. ' ' 

"WELL,  SPEED,  I'M  MOVED." 

Speed,  who  was  a  prosperous  young  merchant, 
reports  that  Lincoln's  personal  effects  consisted  of  a 
pair  of  saddle-bags,  containing  two  or  three  lawbooks, 

83 


84    STORIES   OF   LINCOLN   AS   A   LAWYER. 

and  a  few  pieces  of  clothing.  Riding  on  a  borrowed 
horse,  he  thus  made  his  appearance  in  Springfield. 
When  he  discovered  that  a  single  bedstead  would  cost 
seventeen  dollars,  he  said,  "It  is  probably  cheap 
enough,  but  I  have  not  money  enough  to  pay  for  it." 

When  Speed  offered  to  trust  him,  he  said:  "If  I  fail 
here  as  a  lawyer,  I  will  probably  never  pay  you  at  all. ' ' 
Then  Speed  offered  to  share  a  large  double  bed  with 
him.  "Where  is  your  room?"  Lincoln  asked. 
"Upstairs,"  said  Speed,  pointing  from  the  store  lead 
ing  to  his  room. 

Without  saying  a  word,  he  took  his  saddle-bags  on 
his  arm,  went  upstairs,  set  them  down  on  the  floor, 
came  down  again,  and  with  a  face  beaming  with  pleas 
ure  and  smiles,  exclaimed:  "Well,  Speed,  I'm  moved, " 


LINCOLN  RESCUES  A  PIG  FROM  A  BAD 
PREDICAMENT. 

An  amusing  incident  occurred  in  connection  with 
"riding  the  circuit,"  which  gives  a  pleasant  glimpse 
into  the  good  lawyer's  heart.  He  was  riding  by  a  deep 
slough,  in  which,  to  his  exceeding  pain,  he  saw  a  pig 
struggling,  and  with  such  faint  efforts  that  it  was  evi 
dent  that  he  could  not  extricate  himself  from  the  mud. 
Mr.  Lincoln  looked  at  the  pig  and  the  mud  which 
enveloped  him,  and  then  looked  at  some  new  clothes 
with  which  he  had  but  a  short  time  before  enveloped 
himself.  Deciding  against  the  claims  of  the  pig,  he 
rode  on,  but  he  could  not  get  rid  of  the  vision  of  the 
poor  brute,  and,  at  last,  after  riding  two  miles,  he 
turned  back,  determined  to  rescue  the  animal  at  the 


.LINCOLN   RESCUES   A    PIG. 


STORIES   OF   LINCOLN   AS   A   LAWYER.    87 

expense  of  his  new  clothes.  Arrived  at  the  spot,  he 
tied  his  horse,  and  coolly  went  to  work  to  build  of  old 
rails  a  passage  to  the  bottom  of  the  hole.  Descending 
on  these  rails,  he  seized  the  pig  and  dragged  him  out, 
but  not  without  serious  damage  to  the  clothes  he  wore. 
Washing  his  hands  in  the  nearest  brook,  and  wiping 
them  on  the  grass,  he  mounted  his  gig  and  rode 
along.  He  then  fell  to  examining  the  motive  that 
sent  him  back  to  the  release  of  the  pig.  At  the  first 
thought  it  seemed  to  be  pure  benevolence,  but,  at 
length,  he  came  to  the  conclusion  that  it  was  selfish 
ness,  for  he  certainly  went  to  the  pig's  relief  in  order 
(as  he  said  to  the  friend  to  whom  he  related  the  inci 
dent),  "to  take  a  pain  out  of  his  own  mind."  This 
is  certainly  a  new  view  of  the  nature  of  sympathy; 
and  one  which  it  will  be  well  for  the  casuist  to 
examine. 

HOW    LINCOLN    INVESTED    HIS    FIRST    FIVE    HUN 
DRED  DOLLARS  FOR  THE  BENEFIT  OF 
HIS  STEP-MOTHER. 

Soon  after  Mr.  Lincoln  entered  upon  his  profession 
at  Springfield,  he  was  engaged  in  a  criminal  case  in 
which  it  was  thought  there  was  little  chance  of  suc 
cess.  Throwing  all  his  powers  into  it,  he  came  off 
victorious,  and  promptly  received  for  his  services  five 
hundred  dollars.  A  legal  friend  calling  upon  him  the 
next  morning  found  him  sitting  before  a  table,  upon 
which  his  money  was  spread  out,  counting  it  over  and 
over. 

"Look  here,  Judge,"  said  he.  "See  what  a  heap  of 

money  I've  got  from  the case.  Did  you  ever  see 

anything  like  it?  Why,  I  never  had  so  much  money  in 


88    STORIES   OF   LINCOLN   AS   A   LAWYER. 

my  life  before,  put  it  all  together."  Then,  crossing 
his  arms  upon  the  table,  his  manner  sobering  down, 
he  added:  "I  have  got  just  five  hundred  dollars;  if  it 
were  only  seven  hundred  and  fifty,  I  would  go  directly 
and  purchase  a  quarter  section  of  land,  and  settle  it 
upon  my  old  step-mother." 

His  friend  said  that  if  the  deficiency  was  all  he 
needed,  he  would  loan  him  the  amount,  taking  his 
note,  to  which  Mr.  Lincoln  instantly  acceded. 

His  friend  then  said : 

"  Lincoln,  I  would  not  do  just  what  you  have  indi 
cated.  Your  step-mother  is  getting  old,  and  will  not 
probably  live  many  years.  I  would  settle  the  property 
upon  her  for  her  use  during  her  lifetime,  to  revert  to 
you  upon  her  death. ' ' 

With  much  feeling,  Mr.  Lincoln  replied : 

"I  shall  do  no  such  thing.  It  is  a  poor  return  at 
best  for  all  the  good  woman's  devotion  and  fidelity  to 
me,  and  there  is  not  going  to  be  any  half-way  business 
about  it. ' '  And  so  saying,  he  gathered  up  his  money 
and  proceeded  forthwith  to  carry  his  long-cherished 
purpose  into  execution. 


A  DISTINCTION  WITH  A  DIFFERENCE. 

Lincoln  had  assisted  in  the  prosecution  of  a  mau 
who  had  appropriated  some  of  his  neighbor's  hen 
roosts.  Jogging  home  along  the  highway  with  the 
foreman  of  the  jury,  who  had  convicted  the  hen  stealer, 
he  was  complimented  by  Lincoln  on  the  zeal  and 
ability  of  the  prosecution,  and  remarked:  "Why,  when 
the  country  was  young,  and  I  was  stronger  than  I  am 


STORIES   OF   LINCOLN   AS   A   LAWYER.    89 

now,  I  didn't  mind  packing  off  a  sheep  now  and  again, 
but  stealing  hens!"  The  good  man's  scorn  could  not 
find  words  to  express  his  opinion  of  a  man  who  would 
steal  hens. 

THAT  STAGE-COACH  RIDE. 

Thomas  H.  Nelson,  of  Terre  Haute,  Ind.,  who  was 
appointed  minister  to  Chili  by  Lincoln,  when  he  was 
President,  relates  the  following: 

Judge  Abram  Hammond,  afterwards  Governor  of 
Indiana,  and  myself,  arranged  to  go  from  Terre  Haute 
to  Indianapolis  in  the  stage-coach. 

As  we  stepped  in  we  discovered  that  the  entire  back 
seat  was  occupied  by  a  long,  lank  individual,  whose 
head  seemed  to  protrude  from  one  end  of  the  coach 
and  his  feet  from  the  other.  He  was  the  sole  occu 
pant,  and  was  sleeping  soundly.  Hammond  slapped 
him  familiarly  on  the  shoulder,  and  asked  him  if  he 
had  chartered  the  coach  that  day. 

"Certainly  not,"  and  he  at  once  took  the  front  seat, 
politely  surrendering  to  us  the  place  of  honor  and 
comfort.  An  odd-looking  fellow  he  was,  with  a 
twenty-five  cent  hat,  without  vest  or  cravat.  Regard 
ing  him  as  a  good  subject  for  merriment,  we  perpe 
trated  several  jokes. 

He  took  them  all  with  utmost  innocence  and  good 
nature,  and  joined  in  the  laugh,  although  at  his  own 
expense. 

We  amazed  him  with  words  of  length  and  thunder 
ing  sound. 

After  an  astounding  display  of  wordy  pyrotechnics, 
the  dazed  and  bewildered  stranger  asked,  "What  will 
be  the  upshot  of  this  comet  business?" 


90    STORIES   OF   LINCOLN   AS   A   LAWYER. 

Late  in  the  evening  we  reached  Indianapolis,  and 
hurried  to  Browning's  hotel,  losing  sight  of  the 
stranger  altogether. 

We  retired  to  our  room  to  brush  our  clothes.  In  a 
few  minutes  I  descended  to  the  portico,  and  there 
descried  our  long,  gloomy  fellow  traveler  in  the  cen 
ter  of  an  admiring  group  of  lawyers,  among  whom 
were  Judges  McLean  and  Huntington,  Albert  S. 
White,  and  Richard  W.  Thompson,  who  seemed  to  be 
amused  and  interested  in  a  story  he  was  telling.  I 
inquired  of  Browning,  the  landlord,  who  he  was. 
"Abraham  Lincoln,  of  Illinois,  a  member  of  Con 
gress,"  was  his  response. 

I  was  thunderstruck  at  the  announcement.  I  has 
tened  upstairs  and  told  Hammond  the  startling  news, 
and  together  we  emerged  from  the  hotel  by  a  back 
door,  and  went  down  an  alley  to  another  house,  thus 
avoiding  further  contact  with  our  distinguished  fellow 
traveler. 

Years  afterward,  when  the  President-elect  was  on  his 
way  to  Washington,  I  was  in  the  same  hotel  looking 
over  the  distinguished  party,  when  a  long  arm  reached 
to  my  shoulder,  and  a  shrill  voice  exclaimed,  "Hello, 
Nelson!  do  you  think,  after  all,  the  whole  world  is 
going  to  follow  the  darned  thing  off?"  The  words 
were  my  own  in  answer  to  his  question  in  the  stage 
coach.  The  speaker  was  Abraham  Lincoln. 


ADVICE  TO  A  YOUNG  LAWYER. 

u  Billy,   don't  shoot  too  high — aim  lower,  and  the 
common  people  will  understand  you. 


STORIES   OF   LINCOLN   AS   A   LAWYER.    91 

"They  are  the  ones  you  want  to  reach — at  least, 
they  are  the  ones  you  ought  to  reach. 

"The  educated  and  refined  people  will  understand 
you,  anyway.  If  you  aim  too  high,  your  idea  will  go 
over  the  heads  of  the  masses,  and  only  hit  those  who 
need  no  hitting." 


LINCOLN  AS  A  LAWYER. 

Two  things  were  essential  to  his  success  in  managing 
a  case.  One  was  time ;  the  other  was  a  feeling  of  con 
fidence  in  the  justice  of  the  cause  he  represented. 

He  used  to  say:  "If  I  can  free  this  case  from  techni 
calities  and  get  it  properly  swung  to  the  jury,  I'll  win 
it. ' '  When  asked  why  he  went  so  far  back,  on  a  cer 
tain  occasion,  in  legal  history,  when  he  should  have 
presumed  that  the  court  knew  enough  history,  he 
replied:  "There's  where  you  are  mistaken.  I  dared 
not  trust  the  case  on  the  presumption  that  the  court 
knew  anything;  in  fact,  I  argued  it  on  the  presump 
tion  that  the  court  did  not  know  anything."  A  state 
ment  that  may  not  be  as  extravagant  as  one  would  at 
first  suppose. 

When  told  by  a  friend  that  he  should  speak  with 
more  vim,  and  arouse  the  jury,  talk  faster  and  keep 
them  awake,  he  replied:  "Give  me  your  little  penknife 
with  its  short  blade,  and  hand  me  that  old  jackknife, 
lying  on  the  table."  Opening  the  blade  of  the  pen 
knife  he  said:  "You  see  this  blade  on  the  point  travels 
rapidly,  but  only  through  a  small  portion  of  space  till 
it  stops,  while  the  long  blade  of  the  jackknife  moves 
no  faster  but  through  a  much  greater  space  than  the 
small  one.  Just  so  with  the  long-labored  movements 


92    STORIES   OF   LINCOLN   AS  A   LAWYER. 

of  the  mind.  I  cannot  emit  ideas  as  rapidly  as  others 
because  I  am  compelled  by  nature  to  speak  slowly, 
but  when  I  do  throw  off  a  thought  it  comes  with  some 
effort,  it  has  force  to  cut  its  own  way  and  travels  a 
greater  distance. ' '  The  above  was  said  to  his  partner 
in  their  private  office,  and  was  not  said  boastingly. 

When  Lincoln  attacked  meanness,  fraud  or  vice,  he 
was  powerful,  merciless  in  his  castigation. 

The  following  are  Lincoln's  notes  for  the  argument 
of  a  case  where  an  attempt  was  being  made  to  defraud 
a  soldier's  widow,  with  her  little  babe,  of  her  pension: 

"No  contract, — Not  professional  services, — Unreas 
onable  charge, — Money  retained  by  Def.,  not  given  by 
Pl'ff, — Revolutionary  War, — Describe  Valley  Forge 
privations, — Ice, — Soldiers'  Bleeding  Feet, — Pl'ff  hus 
band, — Soldier  leaving  home  for  Army, — Skin  Deft, 
—Close." 

Judgment  was  made  in  her  behalf,  and  no  charges 
made. 

The  following  reply  was  overheard  in  Lincoln's 
office,  where  he  was  in  conversation  with  a  man  who 
appeared  to  have  a  case  that  Lincoln  did  not  desire : 
"Yes,"  he  said,  "we  can  doubtless  gain  your  case  for 
you ;  we  can  set  a  whole  neighborhood  at  loggerheads ; 
we  can  distress  a  widowed  mother  and  her  six  father 
less  children,  and  thereby  get  for  you  six  hundred  dol 
lars  to  which  you  seem  to  have  a  legal  claim,  but 
which  rightfully  belongs,  it  appears  to  me,  as  much  to 
the  woman  and  children  as  it  does  to  you.  You  must 
remember  that  some  things  legally  right  are  not 
morally  right.  We  shall  not  take  your  case,  but  will 
give  you  a  little  advice  for  which  we  will  charge  you 
nothing.  You  seem  to  be  a  sprightly,  energetic  man; 


STORIES   OF   LINCOLN   AS   A   LAWYER.    93 

we  would  advise  you  to  try  your  hand  at  making  six 
hundred  dollars  in  some  other  way. '  * 


LINCOLN'S  KNOWLEDGE  OF  HUMAN  NATURE. 

Once,  pleading  a  cause,  the  opposing  lawyer  had  all 
the  advantage  of  the  law  in  the  case ;  the  weather  was 
warm,  and  his  opponent,  as  was  admissible  in  frontier 
courts,  pulled  off  his  coat  and  yest  as  he  grew  warm  in 
the  argument. 

At  that  time,  shirts  with  the  buttons  behind  were 
unusual.  Lincoln  took  in  the  situation  at  once.  Know 
ing  the  prejudices  of  the  primitive  people  against  pre 
tension  of  all  sorts,  or  any  affectation  of  superior  social 
rank,  arising,  he  said:  "Gentlemen  of  the  jury,  having 
justice  on  my  side,  I  don't  think  you  will  be  at  all 
influenced  by  the  gentleman's  pretended  knowledge  of 
the  law,  when  you  see  he  does  not  even  know  which 
side  of  his  shirt  should  be  in  front."  There  was  a 
general  laugh,  and  Lincoln's  case  was  won. 


LINCOLN  AND  FINANCES. 

Lincoln  paid  but  little  attention  to  the  fees  and 
money  matters  of  the  firm — he  usually  left  all  such 
matters  to  his  partner. 

He  never  entered  an  item  in  the  account  book. 

If  anybody  paid  money  to  him  which  belonged  to 
the  firm,  on  arriving  at  the  office  he  divided  it  with 
his  partner,  and  if  he  was  not  there,  he  would  wrap  up 
his  share  in  a  piece  of  paper  and  place  it  in  his 
partner's  drawer — marking  it  with  a  pencil,  Case  of 
Roe  vs.  Doe — Herndon's  half." 


94    STORIES   OF   LINCOLN   AS   A 

LINCOLN   DEFENDS   THE   SON    OF  AN   OLD   FRIEND, 
INDICTED  FOR  MURDER. 

Jack  Armstrong,  the  leader  of  the  "Clary  Grove 
Boys, ' '  with  whom  Lincoln  early  in  life  had  a  scuffle 
which  "Jack"  agreed  to  call  "a  drawn  battle,"  in  con 
sequence  of  his  own  foul  play,  afterward  became  a  life 
long,  warm  friend  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  Later  in  life  the 
rising  lawyer  would  stop  at  Jack's  cabin  home,  and 
here  Mrs.  Armstrong,  a  most  womanly  person,  learned 
to  respect  Mr.  Lincoln.  There  was  no  service  to 
which  she  did  not  make  her  guest  abundantly  welcome, 
and  he  never  ceased  to  feel  the  tenderest  gratitude  for 
her  kindness. 

At  length  her  husband  died,  and  she  became  depend 
ent  upon  her  sons.  The  oldest  of  these,  while  in 
attendance  upon  a  camp  meeting,  found  himself 
involved  in  a  mele*e,  which  resulted  in  the  death  of  a 
young  man,  and  young  Armstrong  was  charged  by 
one  of  his  associates  with  striking  the  fatal  blow.  He 
was  examined,  and  imprisoned  to  await  his  trial.  The 
public  mind  was  in  a  blaze  of  excitement,  and  inter 
ested  parties  fed  the  flame. 

Mr.  Lincoln  knew  nothing  of  the  merits  of  this  case, 
that  is  certain.  He  only  knew  that  his*old  friend, 
Mrs.  Armstrong,  was  in  sore  trouble ;  and  he  sat  down 
at  once,  and  volunteered  by  letter  to  defend  her  son. 
His  first  act  was  to  secure  the  postponement,  and  a 
change  of  the  place  of  trial.  There  was  too  much 
fever  in  the  minds  of  the  immediate  public  to  permit 
of  fair  treatment.  When  the  trial  came  on,  the  case 
looked  very  hopeless  to  all  but  Mr.  Lincoln,  who  had 
assured  himself  that  the  young  man  was  not  guilty. 
The  evidence  on  behalf  of  the  State  being  all  in,  and 


STORIES   OF   LINCOLN    AS   A   LAWYER.    97 

looking  like  a  solid  and  consistent  mass  of  testimony 
against  the  prisoner,  Mr.  Lincoln  undertook  the  task 
of  analyzing  it,  and  destroying  it,  which  he  did  in  a 
manner  that  surprised  every  one.  The  principal  wit 
ness  testified  that  "by  the  aid  of  the  brightly  shining 
rnoon  he  saw  the  prisoner  inflict  the  death  blow  with  a 
slung  shot."  Mr.  Lincoln  proved  by  the  almanac  that 
there  was  no  moon  shining  at  that  time.  The  mass  of 
testimony  against  the  prisoner  melted  away,  until 
"not  guilty"  was  the  verdict  of  every  man  present  in 
the  crowded  court-room. 

There  is,  of  course,  no  record  of  the  plea  made  on 
this  occasion,  but  it  is  remembered  as  one  in  which 
Mr.  Lincoln  made  an  appeal  to  the  sympathies  of  the 
jury,  which  quite  surpassed  his  usual  efforts  of  the 
kind,  and  melted  all  to  tears.  The  jury  were  out  but 
half  an  hour,  when  they  returned  with  their  verdict  of 
"not  guilty."  The  widow  fainted  in  the  arms  of  her 
son,  who  divided  his  attention  between  his  services  to 
her  and  his  thanks  to  his  deliverer.  And  thus  the  kind 
woman  who  cared  for  the  poor  young  man,  and  showed 
herself  a  mother  to  him  in  his  need,  received  the  life 
of  a  son,  saved  from  a  cruel  conspiracy,  as  her  reward, 
from  the  hands  of  her  grateful  beneficiary. 


LINCOLN  DEFENDS  A  WIDOWED  PENSIONER  WITH 
SUCCESS. 

An  old  woman  of  seventy  years,  the  widow  of  a 
Revolutionary  pensioner,  came  tottering  into  his  law 
office,  one  day,  and,  taking  a  seat,  told  him  that  a 
certain  pension  agent  had  charged  her  the  exorbitant 


98    STORIES   OF   LINCOLN   AS  A   LAWYER. 

fee  of  $200  for  collecting  her  claim.  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
satisfied  by  her  representations  that  she  had  been 
swindled,  and,  finding  that  she  was  not  a  resident  of 
the  town,  and  that  she  was  poor,  gave  her  money,  and 
set  about  the  work  of  procuring  restitution.  He 
immediately  entered  suit  against  the  agent  to  recover 
a  portion  of  his  ill-gotten  money.  The  suit  was 
entirely  successful,  and  Mr.  Lincoln's  address  to  the 
jury,  before  which  the  case  was  tried,  is  remembered  to 
have  been  peculiarly  touching,  by  allusions  to  the  poverty 
of  the  widow,  and  the  patriotism  of  the  husband  she 
had  sacrificed  to  secure  the  nation's  independence. 
He  had  the  gratification  of  paying  back  to  her  $100, 
and  sent  her  home  rejoicing. 


HOW  MRS.  LINCOLN  SURPRISED  HER  HUSBAND. 

A  funny  story  is  told  of  how  Mrs.  Lincoln  made  a 
little  surprise  for  her  husband. 

In  the  early  days  it  was  customary  for  lawyers  to  go 
from  one  county  to  another  on  horseback,  a  journey 
which  often  required  several  weeks.  On  returning 
from  one  of  these  jaunts,  late  one  night,  Mr.  Lincoln 
dismounted  from  his  horse  at  the  familiar  corner  and 
then  turned  to  go  into  the  house,  but  stopped ;  a  per 
fectly  unknown  structure  was  before  him.  Surprised, 
and  thinking  there  must  be  some  mistake,  he  went 
across  the  way  and  knocked  at  a  neighbor's  door. 
The  family  had  retired,  and  so  called  out : 

"Who's  there?" 

"Abe  Lincoln,"  was  the  reply.  "I  am  looking  for 
my  house.  I  thought  it  was  across  the  way,  but  when 


STORIEvS   OF    LINCOLN   AS   A   LAWYER.    99 

I  went  away  a  few  weeks  ago,  there  was  only  a  one- 
story  house  there,  and  now  there  is  two.  I  think  I 
must  be  lost." 

The  neighbors  then  explained  that  Mrs.  Lincoln  had 
added  another  story  during  his  absence.  And  Mr. 
Lincoln  laughed  and  went  to  his  remodeled  house. 


A  NOTED   HORSE  TRADE  IN  WHICH   LINCOLN   CON- 
FESSED  HE  GOT  THE  WORST  OF  IT. 

When  Abraham  Lincoln  was  a  lawyer  in  Illinois,  he 
and  a  certain  judge  once  got  to  bantering  one  another 
about  trading  horses ;  and  it  was  agreed  that  the  next 
morning  at  nine  o'clock  they  should  make  a  trade,  the 
horses  to  be  unseen  up  to  that  hour,  and  no  backing 
out,  under  a  forfeiture  of  $25. 

At  the  hour  appointed,  the  Judge  came  up,  leading 
the  sorriest- looking  specimen  of  a  horse  ever  seen  in 
those  parts.  In  a  few  minutes  Mr.  Lincoln  was  seen 
approaching  with  a  wooden  saw-horse  upon  his  shoul 
ders.  Great  were  the  shouts  and  laughter  of  the 
crowd,  and  both  were  greatly  increased  when  Mr. 
Lincoln,  on  surveying  the  Judge's  animal,  set  down  his 
saw-horse,  and  exclaimed:  "Well,  Judge,  this  is  the 
first  time  I  ever  got  the  worst  of  it  in  a  horse  trade." 


CONSIDERATIONS  SHOWN  TO  RELATIVES. 

One  of  the  most  beautiful  traits  of  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
his  considerate  regard  for  the  poor  and  obscure  rela 
tives  he  had  left,  plodding  along  in  their  humble  ways 
of  life.  Wherever  upon  his  circuit  he  found  them,  he 


ioo   STORIES   OF   LINCOLN   AS  A   LAWYER. 

always  went  to  their  dwellings,  ate  with  them,  and, 
when  convenient,  made  their  houses  his  home.  He 
never  assumed  in  their  presence  the  slightest  superiority 
to  them,  in  the  facts  and  conditions  of  his  life.  He 
gave  them  money  when  they  needed  and  he  possessed 
it.  Countless  times  he  was  known  to  leave  his  com 
panions  at  the  village  hotel,  after  a  hard  day's  work  in 
the  court-room,  and  spend  the  evening  with  these  old 
friends  and  companions  of  his  humbler  days.  On  one 
occasion,  when  urged  not  to  go,  he  replied,  "Why, 
Aunt's  heart  would  be  broken  if  I  should  leave  town 
without  calling  upon  her" ;  yet,  he  was  obliged  to  walk 
several  miles  to  make  the  call. 


A  PATHETIC  STORY  OF  LINCOLN'S  DISAPPOINTMENT 

IN  FAILING  TO  SECURE  THE  SUPPORT  OF 

THE  SPRINGFIELD  MINISTERS. 

At  the  time  of  Lincoln's  nomination,  at  Chicago, 
Mr.  Newton  Bateman,  Superintendent  of  Public 
Instruction  for  the  State  of  Illinois,  occupied  a  room 
adjoining  and  opening  into  the  Executive  Chamber  at 
Springfield.  Frequently  this  door  was  open  during 
Mr.  Lincoln's  receptions,  and  throughout  the  seven 
months  or  more  of  his  occupation,  he  saw  him  nearly 
every  day.  Often,  when  Mr.  Lincoln  was  tired,  he 
closed  the  door  against  all  intruders  and  called  Mr. 
Bateman  into  his  room  for  a  quiet  talk.  On  one  of 
these  occasions,  Mr.  Lincoln  took  up  a  book  containing 
canvass  of  the  city  of  Springfield,  in  which  he  lived, 
showing  the  candidate  for  whom  each  citizen  had 
declared  it  his  intention  to  vote  in  the  approaching 
election.  Mr.  Lincoln's  friends  had,  doubtless  at  his 


STORIES  OF   LINCOLN   AS   A   LAWYER.    101 

own  request,  placed  the  result  of  the  canvass  in' his 
hands.  This  was  towards  the  close  o'f  Octobe<y  and 
only  a  few  days  before  election.  Calling  Mi\  Bateman 
to  a  seat  by  his  side,  having  previously  locked  all  the 
doors,  he  said: 

"Let  us  look  over  this  book;  I  wish  particularly  to 
see  how  the  ministers  of  Springfield  are  going  to 
vote. ' ' 

The  leaves  were  turned,  one  by  one,  and  as  the 
names  were  examined  Mr.  Lincoln  frequently  asked  if 
this  one  and  that  one  was  not  a  minister,  or  an  elder,  or  a 
member  of  such  and  such  a  church,  and  sadly  expressed 
his  surprise  on  receiving  an  affirmative  answer.  In 
that  manner  he  went  through  the  book,  and  then  he 
closed  it,  and  sat  silently  for  some  minutes  regarding  a 
memorandum  in  pencil  which  lay  before  him.  At 
length  he  turned  to  Mr.  Bateman,  with  a  face  full  of 
sadness,  and  said: 

"Here  are  twenty-three  ministers  of  different 
denominations,  and  all  of  them  are  against  me  but 
three,  and  here  are  a  great  many  prominent  members 
of  churches,  a  very  large  majority  are  against  me.  Mr. 
Bateman,  I  am  not  a  Christian, — God  knows  I  would 
be  one, — but  I  have  carefully  read  the  Bible,  and  I  do 
not  so  understand  this  book,"  and  he  drew  forth  a 
pocket  New  Testament.  "These  men  well  know,"  he 
continued,  "that  I  am  for  freedom  in  the  Territories, 
freedom  everywhere,  as  free  as  the  Constitution  and 
the  laws  will  permit,  and  that  my  opponents  are  for 
slavery.  They  know  this,  and  yet,  with  this  book  in 
their  hands,  in  the  light  of  which  human  bondage 
cannot  live  a  moment,  they  are  going  to  vote  against 
me;  I  do  not  understand  it  at  all." 


io2    STORIES   OF   LINCOLN   AS   A   LAWYER. 

Here  Mr.  Lincoln  paused — paused  for  long  minutes, 
.  >iis  features  surcharged  with  emotion.  Then  he  rose 
and  walked  up  and  down  the  reception-room  in  the 
effort  to  retain  or  regain  his  self-possession.  Stopping 
at  last,  he  said,  with  a  trembling  voice  and  cheeks  wet 
with  tears: 

"I  know  there  is  a  God,  and  that  he  hates  injustice 
and  slavery.  I  see  the  storm  coming,  and  I  know  that 
His  hand  is  in  it.  If  He  has  a  place  and  work  for  me, 
and  I  think  He  has,  I  believe  I  am  ready.  I  am  noth 
ing,  but  Truth  is  everything.  I  know  I  am  right:, 
because  I  know  that  liberty  is  right,  for  Christ  teaches 
it,  and  Christ  is  God.  I  have  told  them  that  a  house 
divided  against  itself  cannot  stand;  and  Christ  and 
Reason  say  the  same ;  and  they  will  find  it  so. 

"Douglas  don't  care  whether  slavery  is  voted  up  or 
down,  but  God  cares,  and  humanity  cares,  and  I  care ; 
and  with  God's  help  I  shall  not  fail.  I  may  not  see 
the  end;  but  it  will  come,  and  I  shall  be  vindicated; 
and  these  men  will  find  they  have  not  read  their  Bible 
right." 

Much  of  this  was  uttered  as  if  he  were  speaking  to 
himself,  and  with  a  sad,  earnest  solemnity  of  manner 
impossible  to  be  described.  After  a  pause  he  re 
sumed: 

"Doesn't  it  seem  strange  that  men  can  ignore  the 
moral  aspect  of  this  contest?  No  revelation  could 
make  it  plainer  to  me  that  slavery  or  the  Government 
must  be  destroyed.  The  future  would  be  something 
awful,  as  I  look  at  it,  but  for  this  rock  on  which  I 
stand"  (alluding  to  the  Testament  which  he  still  held 
in  his  hand),  "especially  with  the  knowledge  of  how 
these  ministers  are  going  to  vote.  It  seems  as  if  God 


STORIES  OF   LINCOLN   AS  A   LAWYER.    103 

had  borne  with  this  thing  (slavery)  until  the  teachers 
of  religion  have  corne  to  defend  it  from  the  Bible,  and 
to  claim  for  it  a  divine  character  and  sanction ;  and 
now  the  cup  of  iniquity  is  full,  and  the  vials  of  wrath 
will  be  poured  out." 

Everything  he  said  was  of  a  peculiarly  deep,  tender, 
and  religious  tone,  and  all  was  tinged  with  a  touching 
melancholy.  He  repeatedly  referred  to  his  conviction 
that  the  day  of  wrath  was  at  hand,  and  that  he  was  to 
be  an  actor  in  the  terrible  struggle  which  would  issue 
in  the  overthrow  of  slavery,  although  he  might  not 
live  to  see  the  end. 

After  further  reference  to  a  belief  in  the  Divine 
Providence  and  the  fact  of  God  in  history,  the  con 
versation  turned  upon  prayer.  He  freely  stated  his 
belief  in  the  duty,  privilege,  and  efficacy  of  prayer, 
and  intimated,  in  no  unmistakable  terms,  that  he  had 
sought  in  that  way  Divine  guidance  and  favor.  The 
effect  of  this  conversation  upon  the  mind  of  Mr.  Bate- 
man,  a  Christian  gentleman  whom  Mr.  Lincoln  pro 
foundly  respected,  was  to  convince  him  that  Mr. 
Lincoln  had,  in  a  quiet  way,  found  a  path  to  the 
Christian  standpoint — that  he  had  found  God,  and 
rested  on  the  eternal  truth  of  God.  As  the  two  men 
were  about  to  separate,  Mr.  Bateman  remarked : 

"I  have  not  supposed  that  you  were  accustomed  to 
think  so  much  upon  this  class  of  subjects;  certainly 
your  friends  generally  are  ignorant  of  the  sentiments 
you  have  expressed  to  me. ' ' 

He  replied  quickly:  "I  know  they  are,  but  I  think 
more  on  these  subjects  than  upon  all  others,  and  I  have 
done  so  for  years ;  and  I  am  willing  you  should  know 
it." 


io4   STORIES   OF   LINCOLN   AS   A   LAWYER. 

INCIDENTS  OF  LINCOLN'S  HOME  LIFE. 

A  lady  relative  who  lived  for  two  years  with  the  Lin- 
coins,  told  me  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was  in  the  habit  of 
lying  on  the  floor  with  the  back  of  a  chair  for  a  pillow 
when  he  read. 

One  evening,  when  in  this  position  in  the  hall,  a 
knock  was  heard  at  the  front  door,  and,  although  in  his 
shirt  sleeves,  he  answered  the  call.  Two  ladies  were 
at  the  door,  whom  he  invited  into  the  parlor,  notifying 
them  in  his  open,  familiar  way,  that  he  would  "trot 
the  women  folks  out."  Mrs.  Lincoln,  from  an  adjoin 
ing  room,  witnessed  the  ladies'  entrance,  and,  over 
hearing  her  husband's  jocose  expression,  her  indig 
nation  was  so  instantaneous  she  made  the  situation 
exceedingly  interesting  for  him,  and  he  was  glad  to 
retreat  from  the  mansion.  He  did  not  return  till  very 
late  at  night,  and  then  slipped  quietly  in  at  a  rear 
door. 

"NOTHING  TO  WEAR." 

A  lady  reader  or  elocutionist  came  to  Springfield  iik 
1857.  A  large  crowd  greeted  her.  Among  other 
things  she  recited  "Nothing  to  Wear,"  a  piece  in 
which  is  described  the  perplexities  that  beset  "Miss 
Flora  McFlimsey"  in  her  efforts  to  appear  fashionable. 

In  the  midst  of  one  stanza  in  which  no  effort  is 
made  to  say  anything  particularly  amusing,  and  during 
the  reading  of  which  the  audience  manifested  the  most 
respectful  silence  and  attention,  some  one  in  the  rear 
seats  burst  out  with  a  loud,  coarse  laugh,  a  sudden 
and  explosive  guffaw.  It  startled  the  speaker  and 
audience,  and  kindled  a  storm  of  unsuppressed  laughter 
and  applause.  Everybody  looked  back  to  ascertain 


STORIES  OF   LINCOLN   AS  A   LAWYER.    107 

the  cause  of  the  demonstration,  and  were  greatly  sur 
prised  to  find  that  it  was  Mr.  Lincoln. 

He  blushed  and  squirmed  with  the  awkward  diffi 
dence  of  a  schoolboy.  What  caused  him  to  laugh,  no 
one  was  able  to  explain.  He  was  doubtless  wrapped 
up  in  a  brown  study,  and  recalling  some  amusing  epi 
sode,  indulged  laughter  without  realizing  his  surround 
ings.  The  experience  mortified  him  greatly. 


DEFEATED  BY  A  STILL-HUNT. 

Lincoln  was  a  candidate  of  the  Know  Nothings  for 
the  State  Legislature,  the  party  was  overconfident,  the 
Democrats  pursued  a  still-hunt.  Lincoln  was  defeated. 
He  compared  the  situation  to  one  of  the  camp  follow 
ers  of  General  Taylor's  army  who  had  secured  a  barrel 
of  cider,  erected  a  tent,  and  commenced  dealing  it  out 
to  the  thirsty  soldiers  at  twenty-five  cents  a  drink,  but 
he  had  sold  but  little  before  another  sharp  one  set  up  a 
tent  at  his  back,  and  tapped  the  barrel  so  as  to  flow  on 
his  side,  and  peddled  out  No.  i  cider  at  five  cents  a 
drink!  of  course,  getting  the  latter's  trade  entire  on 
the  borrowed  capital. 

"The  Democrats,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "had  played 
Knownothing  on  a  cheaper  scale  than  had  the  real 
devotees  of  Sam,  and  had  raked  down  his  pile  with  his 
own  cider!'*  

HOW  LINCOLN  WON  THE  NOMINATION  FOR 
CONGRESS. 

Old-time  politicians,  says  a  correspondent,  will 
readily  recall  the  heated  political  campaign  of  1843,  in 
the  neighboring  State  of  Illinois. 


loS   STORIES   OF   LINCOLN   AS   A   LAWYER. 

The  chief  interest  of  the  campaign  lay  in  the  race 
for  Congress  in  the  Capital  district,  which  was  between 
Hardin — fiery,  eloquent,  and  impetuous  Democrat — 
and  Lincoln — plain,  practical,  and  ennobled  Whig. 
The  world  knows  the  result.  Lincoln  was  elected. 

It  is  not  so  much  his  election  as  the  manner 
in  which  he  secured  his  nomination  with  which  we 
have  to  deal.  Before  that  ever-memorable  spring,  Lin 
coln  vacillated  between  the  courts  of  Springfield,  rated 
as  a  plain,  honest,  logical  Whig,  with  no  ambition 
higher  politically  than  to  occupy  some  good  home 
office.  Late  in  the  fall  of  1842  his  name  began  to  be 
mentioned  in  connection  with  Congressional  aspira 
tions,  which  fact  greatly  annoyed  the  leaders  of  his 
political  party,  who  had  already  selected  as  the  Whig 
candidate  one  Baker,  afterward  the  gallant  Colonel  who 
fell  so  bravely  and  died  such  an  honorable  death  on  the 
battlefield  of  Ball's  Bluff  in  1862.  Despite  all  efforts 
of  his  opponents  within  his  party,  the  name  of  the 
"gaunt  rail-splitter"  was  hailed  with  acclaim  by  the 
masses,  to  whom  he  had  endeared  himself  by  his  witti 
cisms,  honest  tongue,  and  quaint  philosophy  when  on 
the  stump,  or  mingling  with  them  in  their  homes. 

The  convention,  which  met  in  early  spring,  in  the 
city  of  Springfield,  was  to  be  composed  of  the  usual 
number  of  delegates.  The  contest  for  the  nomination 
was  spirited  and  exciting. 

A  few  weeks  before  the  meeting  of  the  convention 
the  fact  was  found  by  the  leaders  that  the  advantage 
lay  with  Lincoln,  and  that  unless  they  pulled  some 
very  fine  wires  nothing  could  save  Baker. 

They  attempted  to  play  the  game  that  has  so  often 
won,  by  "convincing"  delegates  under  instructions  for 


STORIES  OF   LINCOLN   AS   A   LAWYER.    109 

Lincoln,  to  violate  them,  and  vote  for  Baker.  They  had 
apparently  succeeded. 

"The  plans  of  mice  and  men  aft  gang  aglee. "  So  it 
was  in  this  case.  Two  days  before  the  convention, 
Lincoln  received  an  intimation  of  this,  and,  late  at 
night,  indited  the  following  letter. 

The  letter  was  addressed  to  Martin  Morris,  who 
resides  at  Petersburg,  an  intimate  friend  of  his,  and  by 
him  circulated  among  those  who  were  instructed  for 
him  at  the  county  convention. 

It  had  the  desired  effect.  The  convention  met,  the 
scheme  of  the  conspirators  miscarried,  Lincoln  was 
nominated,  made  a  vigorous  canvass,  and  was  triumph 
antly  elected,  thus  paving  the  way  for  his  more 
extended  and  brilliant  conquests. 

This  letter,  Lincoln  had  often  told  his  friends,  gave 
him  ultimately  the  Chief  Magistracy  of  the  nation. 
He  has  also  said,  that,  had  he  been  beaten  before  the 
convention  he  would  have  been  forever  obscured. 
The  following  is  a  verbatim  copy  of  the  epistle : 

"April  14,  1843. 

"Friend  Morris:  I  have  heard  it  intimated  that 
Baker  is  trying  to  get  you  or  Miles,  or  both  of  you,  to 
violate  the  instructions  of  the  meeting  that  appointed 
you,  and  to  go  for  him.  I  have  insisted,  and  still 
insist,  that  this  cannot  be  true. 

"Sure  Baker  would  not  do  the  like.  As  well  might 
Ilardin  ask  me  to  vote  for  him  in  the  convention. 

"Again,  it  is  said  there  will  be  an  attempt  to  get 
instructions  in  your  county  requiring  you  to  go  for 
Baker.  This  is  all  wrong.  Upon  the  same  rule,  why 
might  I  not  fly  from  the  decision  against  me  at  Sanga- 


no   STORIES   OF   LINCOLN   AS   A   LAWYER. 

men  and  get  up  instructions  to  their  delegates  to  go  for 
me.  There  are  at  least  1,200  Whigs  in  the  county  that 
took  no  part,  and  yet  I  would  as  soon  stick  my  head  in 
the  fire  as  attempt  it. 

''Besides,  if  anyone  should  get  the  nomination  by 
such  extraordinary  means,  all  harmony  in  the  district 
would  inevitably  be  lost.  Honest  Whigs  (and  very 
nearly  all  of  them  are  honest)  would  not  quietly  abide 
such  enormities. , 

"I  repeat,  such  an  attempt  on  Baker's  part  cannot 
be  true.  Write  me  at  Springfield  how  the  matter  is. 
Don't  show  or  speak  of  this  letter. 

"A.    LINCOLN." 

Mr.  Morris  did  show  the  letter,  and  Mr.  Lincoln 
always  thanked  his  stars  that  he  did. 


"HOLD  ON,  BREESE!" 

Judge  Breese,  of  the  Supreme  bench, — one  of  the 
most  distinguished  of  American  jurists,  and  a  man  of 
great  personal  dignity, — was  about  to  open  court  at 
Springfield,  when  Lincoln  called  out  in  his  hearty  way, 
"Hold  on,  Breese!  Don't  open  court  yet!  Here's 
Bob  Blackwell  just  going  to  tell  a  story!"  The  Judge 
passed  on  without  replying,  evidently  regarding  it  as 
beneath  the  dignity  of  the  Supreme  Court  to  delay 
proceedings  for  the  sake  of  a  story. 


COLONEL  BAKER  DEFENDED  BY  LINCOLN. 

On  one  occasion,  Colonel  Baker  was  speaking  in  a 
courthouse,    which  had    been  a    storehouse,   and,  on 


STORIES   OF   LINCOLN   AS  A   LAWYER.    113 

making  some  remarks  that  were  offensive  to  certain 
political  rowdies  in  the  crowd,  they  cried:  "Take  him 
off  the  stand!"  Immediate  confusion  ensued,  and 
there  was  an  attempt  to  carry  the  demand  into  execu 
tion.  Directly  over  the  speaker's  head  was  an  old 
scuttle,  at  which  it  appeared  Mr.  Lincoln  had  been 
listening  to  the  speech.  In  an  instant,  Mr.  Lincoln's 
feet  came  through  the  scuttle,  followed  by  his  tall  and 
sinewy  frame,  and  he  was  standing  by  Colonel  Baker's 
side.  He  raised  his  hand,  and  the  assembly  subsided 
into  silence. 

"Gentlemen,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "let  us  not  disgrace 
the  age  and  country  in  which  we  live.  This  is  a  land 
where  freedom  of  speech  is  guaranteed.  Mr.  Baker 
has  a  right  to  speak,  and  ought  to  be  permitted  to  do 
so.  I  am  here  to  protect  him,  and  no  man  shall  take 
him  from  this  stand  if  I  can  prevent  it." 

The  suddenness  of  his  appearance,  his  perfect  calm 
ness  and  fairness,  and  the  knowledge  that  he  would  do 
what  he  had  promised  to  do,  quieted  all  disturbance, 
and  the  speaker  concluded  his  remarks  without 
difficulty. 


"WHOLE  HOG  JACKSON  MAN." 

When  Lincoln  was  working  for  the  nomination  for 
the  Legislature  the  second  time,  he  was  on  a  certain 
occasion  pitted  against  one  George  Forquer,  who 
had  been  a  leading  Whig,  but  was  now  a  "Whole 
Hog  Jackson  Mart,"  and  his  reward  was  a  good 
office. 

Forquer  devoted  himself  to  taking  down  the  young 


ii4   STORIES   OF   LINCOLN   AS   A   LAWYER. 

man  from  New  Salem.  He  ridiculed  his  dress,  man 
ners  and  rough  personal  appearance,  and  with  much 
pomposity  derided  him  as  an  uncouth  youngster.  Lin 
coln  had  noticed,  on  coming  into  Springfield,  Forquer's 
fine  house,  on  which  was  a  lightning  rod,  then  a  great 
novelty  in  those  parts.  Lincoln,  on  rising  to  reply, 
stood  for  a  moment  with  flashing  eyes,  and  pale 
cheeks,  betraying  his  inward  but  unspoken  wrath.  He 
began  by  discussing  very  briefly  this  ungenerous 
attack.  He  said:  <ll  am  not  so  young  in  years  as  I  am 
in  the  tricks  of  the  trade  of  the  politician;  but,  live 
long,  or  die  young,  I  would  rather  die  now,  than,  like 
that  gentleman,  change  my  politics,  and  with  the 
change  receive  an  office  worth  three  thousand  dollars 
a  year,  and  then  feel  obliged  to  erect  a  lightning  rod 
over  my  house  to  protect  my  guilty  conscience  from  an 
offended  God." 

The  effect  upon  the  simple  audience,  gathered  there 
in  the  open  air,  was  electrical. 

At  another  time,  Lincoln  replied  to  Col.  Richard 
Taylor,  a  self-conceited,  dandified  man  who  wore  a 
gold  chain  and  ruffled  shirt.  His  party  at  that  time 
were  posing  as  the  hardworking,  bone  and  sinew  of  the 
land,  while  the  Whigs  were  stigmatized  as  aristocrats, 
ruffled-shirt  gentry.  Taylor  making  a  sweeping 
gesture,  his  overcoat  became  torn  open,  displaying  his 
finery.  Lincoln  in  reply  said,  laying  his  hand  on  his 
jeans-clad  breast:  "Here  is  your  aristocrat,  one  of 
your  silk-stocking  gentry,  at  your  service."  Then, 
spreading  out  his  hands,  bronzed  and  gaunt  with  toil : 
44  Here  is  your  rag-basin  with  lily-white  hands.  Yes, 
I  suppose,  according  to  my  friend  Taylor,  I  am  a 
bloated  aristocrat. ' ' 


STORIES  OF  LINCOLN   AS  A  LAWYER.    115 

HARK  FROM  THE  TOMBS. 

"Fellow-citizens:  My  friend,  Mr.  Douglas,  made  the 
startling  announcement  to-day  that  the  Whigs  are  all 
dead. 

"If  that  be  so,  fellow  citizens,  you  will  now  experi 
ence  the  novelty  of  hearing  a  speech  from  a  dead  man ; 
and  I  suppose  you  might  properly  say,  in  the  language 
of  the  old  hymn : 

"  'Hark!  from  the  tombs  a  doleful  sound.'  " 


TRUSTED  TILL  THE  "BRITCHEN"  BROKE. 

In  the  campaign  of  1852,  Lincoln,  in  reply  to 
Douglas'  speech,  wherein  he  speaks  of  confidence  in 
Providence,  replied:  "Let  us  stand  by  our  candidate 
(General  Scott)  as  faithfully  as  he  has  always  stood  by 
our  country,  and  I  much  cloiibt  if  we  do  not  perceive  a 
slight  abatement  of  Judge  Douglas's  confidence  in 
Providence  as  well  as  the  people.  I  suspect  that  con 
fidence  is  not  more  firmly  fixed  with  the  Judge  than  it 
was  with  the  old  woman  whose  horse  ran  away  with 
her  in  a  buggy.  She  said  she  'trusted  in  Providence 
till  the  britchen  broke,'  and  then  she  'didn't  know 
what  in  airth  to  do. ' 

"The  chance  is,  the  Judge  will  see  the  britchen 
broke,  and  then  he  can,  at  his  leisure,  bewail  the  fate 
of  Locofocism  as  the  victim  of  misplaced  confidence." 


CROCODILE  AND  NEGRO. 

Douglas  made  use  in  one  of  his  brief  tours  of  the 
following  figure  of  speech:  "As  between  the  crocodile 


u6   STORIES   OF   LINCOLN   AS   A   LAWYER. 

and  the  negro,  I  take  the  side  of  the  negro;  but  as 
between  the  negro  and  the  white  man — I  would  go  for 
the  white  man  every  time."  Lincoln,  at  home,  noted 
that ;  and  afterwards,  when  he  had  occasion  to  refer 
to  the  remark,  he  said:  "I  believe  that  this  is  a  sort  of 
proposition  in  proportion,  which  may  be  stated  thus: 
"As  the  negro  is  to  the  white  man,  so  is  the  crocodile 
to  the  negro ;  and  as  the  negro  may  rightfully  treat  the 
crocodile  as  a  beast  or  reptile,  so  the  white  man  may 
rightfully  treat  the  negro  as  a  beast  or  reptile. ' ' 


LINCOLN'S  LAST  INTERVIEW  WITH  DOUGLAS. 

"One  day  Douglas  came  rushing  in,"  he  related, 
"and  said  he  had  just  got  a  telegraph  dispatch  from 
some  friends  in  Illinois  urging  him  to  come  out  and 
help  set  things  right  in  Egypt,  and  that  he  would  go, 
or  stay  in  Washington,  just  where  I  thought  he  could 
do  the  most  good. 

"I  told  him  to  do  as  he  chose,  but  that  probably  he 
could  do  best  in  Illinois,  Upon  that  he  shook  hands 
with  me,  and  hurried  away  to  catch  the  next  train. 
I  never  saw  him  again." 


PEN  PICTURE  OF  LINCOLN,  AND  HIS  SPEECH  IN 
NEW  YORK  CITY. 

"When  Lincoln  rose  to  speak,  I  was  greatly  disap 
pointed.  He  was  tall,  tall,  oh,  so  tall,  and  so  angular 
and  awkward  that  I  had  fc"  n  instant  a  feeling  of  pity 
for  so  ungainly  a  man.  He  began  in  a  low  tone  of 
voice,  as  if  he  were  used  to  speaking  out  of  doors,  and 
was  afraid  of  speaking  too  loud. 


STORIES   OF   LINCOLN   AS   A   LAWYER.    119 

"He  said  'Mr.  Cheerman,'  instead  of  'Mr.  Chair 
man,  '  and  employed  many  other  words  with  an  old- 
fashioned  pronunciation.  I  said  to  myself,  'Old 
fellow,  you  won't  do;  it  is  all  very  well  for  the  Wild 
West,  but  this  will  never  go  down  in  New  York. '  But 
pretty  soon  he  began  to  get  into  the  subject;  he 
straightened  up,  made  regular  and  graceful  gestures; 
his  face  lighted  as  with  an  inward  fire ;  the  whole  man 
was  transfigured.  I  forgot  the  clothing,  his  personal 
appearance,  and  his  individual  peculiarities.  Pres 
ently,  forgetting  myself,  I  was  on  my  feet  with  the 
rest,  yelling  like  a  wild  Indian,  cheering  the  wonder 
ful  man.  In  the  close  parts  of  his  argument,  you 
could  hear  the  gentle  sizzling  of  the  gas  burners. 

"When  he  reached  a  climax,  the  thunders  of  applause 
were  terrific.  It  was  a  great  speech.  When  I  came 
out  of  the  hall  my  face  was  glowing  with  excitement 
and  my  frame  all  a-quiver.  A  friend,  with  his  eyes 
aglow,  asked  me  what  I  thought  of  Abe  Lincoln,  the 
rail-splitter.  I  said,  'He's  the  greatest  man  since  St. 
Paul. '  And  I  think  so  yet. ' ' 


REMARKS  UTTERED  BY  LINCOLN,  1858. 
"Though  I  now  sink  out  of  view,  I  believe  I  have 
made  some  mark  which  will  tell  for  the  cause  of  liberty 
long  after  I  am  gone." 


TRENT  AFFAIR. 

Through  Minister  Adams  he  said  to  angry  England: 
"It  is  unnecessary  to  remind  your  lordship  that  this 
means  war. ' ' 


120   STORIES   OF   LINCOLN   AS   A   LAWYER. 

SLAVERY. 

He  said  of  slavery  in  '55:  "I  bite  my  lips  and  keep 
quiet."  A  while  later,  in  indignation:  "Gentlemen, 
I'll  make  the  ground  of  this  country  too  hot  for  the  feet 
of  slaves." 


"THE  HOUSE  DIVIDED  AGAINST  ITSELF." 

Lincoln  read  the  speech,  containing  the  above,  to 
many  of  his  friends,  before  he  delivered  it  in  the  con 
test  for  the  United  States  Senate  against  Douglas. 
Some  condemned,  some  indorsed,  characterized  it  as 
"fool  utterances, -  ahead  of  its  time";  another  said, 
"Lincoln,  deliver  that  speech  as  read,  and  it  will  make 
you  President."  Lincoln  answered  all  their  objec 
tions,  substantially  as  follows:  "Friends,  this  thing  has 
been  retarded  long  enough.  The  time  has  come  when 
these  sentiments  should  be  uttered ;  and  if  it  is  decreed 
that  I  should  go  down  because  of  this  speech,  then  let 
me  go  down  linked  to  the  truth — let  me  die  in  the 
advocacy  of  what  is  just  and  right. " 

To  one  complainant  who  followed  into  his  office  he 
said  proudly:  "If  I  had  to  draw  a  pen  across  my 
record,  and  erase  my  whole  life  from  sight,  and  I  had 
one  poor  gift  or  choice  left  as  to  what  I  should  save 
from  the  wreck,  I  should  choose  that  speech  and  leave 
it  to  the  world  unerased. "  This  was  Lincoln's  position 
in  the  Lincoln-Douglas  debate.  His  opening  speech 
at  Springfield  contained  this  memorable  sentence.  In 
a  letter  to  a  friend,  August  22,  1858,  Lincoln  said: 
"Douglas  and  I,  for  the  first  time  during  this  canvass, 
crossed  swords  here  yesterday.  The  fire  flew  some, 
and  I  am  glad  to  know  I  am  yet  alive. ' ' 


REPUBLICAN  CANDIDATES 


OF  ILLINOIS. 


CAMPAIGN   BADGES   OF    i860. 


STORIES   OF   LINCOLN   AS   A   LAWYER.    123 

FIRST  ECHOES  FROM  CHICAGO  CONVENTION. 

Mr.  Volk,  the  artist,  relates  that,  being  in  Spring 
field  when  the  nomination  was  announced,  he  called 
upon  Mr.  Lincoln,  whom  he  found  looking  radiant. 
"I  exclaimed,  4I  am  the  first  man  from  Chicago,  I 
believe,  who  has  had  the  honor  of  congratulating  you 
on  your  nomination  for  President.'  Then  those  two 
great  hands  took  both  of  mine  with  a  grasp  never  to 
be  forgotten,  and  while  shaking,  I  said,  'Now  that 
you  will  doubtless  be  the  next  President  of  the  United 
States,  I  want  to  make  a  statue  of  you,  and  shall  try  my 
best  to  do  you  justice. ' 

"Said  he,  'I  don't  doubt  it,  for  I  have  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  you  are  an  honest  man, '  and  with  that 
greeting,  I  thought  my  hands  in  a  fair  way  of  being 
crushed. 

"On  the  Sunday  following,  by  agreement,  I  called 
to  make  a  cast  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  hands.  I  asked  him 
to  hold  something  in  his  hands,  and  told  him  a  stick 
would  do.  Thereupon  he  went  to  the  woodshed,  and 
I  heard  the  saw  go,  and  he  soon  returned  to  the  dining- 
room,  whittling  off  the  end  of  a  piece  of  broom  handle. 
I  remarked  to  him  that  he  need  not  whittle  off  the 
edges.  'Oh,  well,'  said  he,  'I  thought  I  would  like  to 
have  it  nice. '  ' ' 


MR.  LINCOLN'S  VISION. 

Mr.  Lincoln,  after  hearing  of  his  nomination  at  Chi 
cago  for  the  Presidency,  returned  home,  and,  feeling 
somewhat  weary,  went  upstairs  to  his  wife's  sitting- 
room,  and  lay  down  upon  a  couch  in  the  room  directly 
opposite  a  bureau,  upon  which  was  a  looking-glass. 


i24   STORIES  OF   LINCOLN   AS  A   LAWYER. 

"As  I  reclined,"  said  he,  "my  eye  fell  upon  the  glass, 
and  I  saw  distinctly  two  images  of  myself,  exactly 
alike,  except  that  one  was  a  little  paler  than  the  other. 
I  arose  and  lay  down  again  with  the  same  result.  It 
made  me  quite  uncomfortable  for  a  few  minutes,  but, 
some  friends  coming  in,  the  matter  passed  out  of  my 
mind.  The  next  day,  while  walking  in  the  street, 
I  was  suddenly  reminded  of  the  circumstance,  and  the 
disagreeable  sensation  produced  by  it  returned.  I  had 
never  seen  anything  of  the  kind  before,  and  did  not 
know  what  to  make  of  it.  I  determined  to  go  home 
and  place  myself  in  the  same  position,  and,  if  the  same 
effect  was  produced,  I  would  make  up  my  mind  that  it 
was  the  natural  result  of  some  principle  of  refraction 
or  optics,  which  I  did  not  understand,  and  dismiss  it. 
I  tried  the  experiment,  with  the  same  result;  and,  -as  I 
had  said  to  myself,  accounted  for  it  on  some  principle 
unknown  to  me,  and  it  then  ceased  to  trouble  me. 
But  the  God  who  works  through  the  laws  of  Nature, 
might  surely  give  a  sign  to  me,  if  one  of  His  chosen 
servants,  even  through  the  operation  of  a  principle  in 
optics." 

Mr.  Lincoln  remarked  to  Mr.  Noah  Brookes,  one  of 
his  most  intimate  personal  friends:  "I  should  be  the 
most  presumptuous  blockhead  upon  this  footstool  if  I 
for  one  day  thought  that  I  could  discharge  the  duties 
which  have  come  upon  me,  since  I  came  to  this  place, 
without  the  aid  and  enlightenment  of  One  who  is 
stronger  and  wiser  than  all  others."  He  said  on 
another  occasion :  "I  am  very  sure  that  if  I  do  not  go 
away  from  here  a  wiser  man,  I  shall  go  away  a  better 
man,  from  having  learned  here  what  a  very  poor  sort 
of  a  man  I  am.'* 


STORIES   OP   LINCOLN   AS   A   LAWYER.    125 
"ADAM'S  ALE,"  LINCOLN'S  ONLY  BEVERAGE. 

Immediately  after  Mr.  Lincoln's  nomination  for 
President  at  the  Chicago  Convention,  a  committee,  of 
which  Governor  Morgan,  of  New  York,  was  Chairman, 
visited  him  in  Springfield,  111.,  where  he  was  officially 
informed  of  his  nomination. 

After  this  ceremony  had  passed,  Mr.  Lincoln 
remarked  to  the  company  that  as  an  appropriate  con 
clusion  to  an  interview  so  important  and  interesting  as 
that  which  had  just  transpired,  he  supposed  good  man 
ners  would  require  that  he  should  treat  the  committee 
with  something  to  drink ;  and  opening  the  door  that 
led  into  the  rear,  he  called  out,  "Mary!  Mary!"  A 
girl  responded  to  the  call,  to  whom  Mr.  Lincoln  spoke 
a  few  words  in  an  undertone,  and,  closing  the  door, 
returned  again  and  conversed  with  his  guests.  In  a 
few  minutes  the  maiden  entered,  bearing  a  large 
waiter,  containing  several  glass  tumblers,  and  a  large 
pitcher  in  the  midst,  and  placed  it  upon  the  center- 
table.  Mr.  Lincoln  arose,  and  gravely  addressing 
the  company,  said:  "Gentlemen,  we  must  pledge 
our  mutual  health  in  the  most  healthy  beverage 
that  God  has  given  to  man — it  is  the  only  bever 
age  I  have  ever  used  or  allowed  my  family  to  use, 
and  I  cannot  conscientiously  depart  from  it  on  the 
present  occasion.  It  is  pure  Adam's  ale  from  the 
spring;"  and,  taking  the  tumbler,  he  touched  it  to 
his  lips,  and  pledged  them  his  highest  respects  in  a 
cup  of  cold  water.  Of  course,  all  his  guests  were 
constrained  to  admire  his  consistency,  and  to  join  in 
\iis  example. 


126   STORIES   OF   LINCOLN   AS   A   LAWYER, 

STANTON'S  FIRST  IMPRESSIONS  OF  LINCOLN. 

He  made  no  secret  of  his  disgust  of  that  "long,  lank 
creature  from  Illinois,"  and  declared  if  "that  giraffe" 
was  permitted  to  appear  in  the  case  he  would  throw 
up  his  brief  and  leave  "it. 

Mr.  Lincoln  keenly  felt  the  affront,  but  recognizing 
Stanton's  ability  beneath  his  brusque  exterior,  he 
afterwards,  for  the  public  good,  appointed  him  to  a 
seat  in  his  Cabinet. 


TWO  ENTERTAINING  ANECDOTES  ILLUSTRATING 
LINCOLN'S  GOOD  NATURE. 

Soon  after  Mr.  Lincoln's  nomination  for  the  Presi 
dency,  the  Executive  Chamber,  a  large,  fine  room  in 
the  State  House  at  Springfield,  was  set  apart  for  him, 
where  he  met  the  public  until  after  his  election. 

As  illustrative  of  the  nature  of  many  of  his  calls,  the 
following  brace  of  incidents  were  related  to  Mr.  Hol 
land  by  an  eye-witness:  "Mr.  Lincoln  being  in  con 
versation  with  a  gentleman  one  day,  two  raw, 
plainly-dressed  young  'Suckers'  entered  the  room,  and 
bashfully  lingered  near  the  door.  As  soon  as  he 
observed  them,  and  apprehended  their  embarrassment, 
he  rose  and  walked  to  them,  saying:  'How  do  you  do, 
my  good  fellows?  What  can  I  do  for  you?  Will  you 
sit  down?'  The  spokesman  of  the  pair,  the  shorter  of 
the  two,  declined  to  sit,  and  explained  the  object  of  the 
call  thus :  He  had  had  a  talk  about  the  relative  height 
of  Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  companion,  and  had  asserted 
his  belief  that  they  were  of  exactly  the  same  height. 
He  had  come  in  to  verify  his  judgment.  Mr.  Lincoln 


STORIES   OF   LINCOLN   AS   A   LAWYER.    127 

smiled,  went  and  got  his  cane,  and,  placing  the  encLof 
it  upon  the  wall,  said: 

14  'Here,  young  man,  come  under  here. 

"The  young  man  came  under  the  cane  as  Mr.  Lin 
coln  held  it,  and  when  it  was  perfectly  adjusted  to  his 
height,  Mr.  Lincoln  said: 

"  'Now,  come  out,  and  hold  the  cane.' 

"This  he  did,  while  Mr.  Lincoln  stood  under. 
Rubbing  his  head  back  and  forth  to  see  that  it  worked 
easily  under  the  measurement,  he  stepped  out,  and 
declared  to  the  sagacious  fellow  who  was  curiously 
looking  on,  that  he  had  guessed  with  remarkable 
accuracy — that  he  and  the  young  man  were  exactly  the 
same  height.  Then  he  shook  hands  with  them  and  sent 
them  on  their  way.  Mr.  Lincoln  would  just  as  soon 
have  thought  of  cutting  off  his  right  hand  as  he  would 
have  thought  of  turning  those  boys  away  with  the  im 
pression  that  they  had  in  any  way  insulted  his  dignity. 

"They  had  hardly  disappeared  when  an  old  and 
modestly  dressed  woman  made  her  appearance.  She 
knew  Mr.  Lincoln,  but  Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  at  first 
recognize  her.  Then  she  undertook  to  recall  to  his 
memory  certain  incidents  connected  with  his  ride  upon 
the  circuit — especially  his  dining  at  her  house  upon 
the  road  at  different  times.  Then  he  remembered  her 
and  her  home.  Having  fixed  her  own  place  in  his 
recollection,  she  tried  to  recall  to  him  a  certain  scanty 
dinner  of  bread  and  milk  that  he  once  ate  at  her  house. 
He  could  not  remember  it — on  the  contrary,  he  only 
remembered  that  he  had  always  fared  well  at  her  house. 

"  'Well,'  said  she,  'one  day  you  came  along  after  we 
had  got  through  dinner,  and  we  had  eaten  up  every 
thing,  and  I  could  give  you  nothing  but  a  bowl  of 


128   STORIES   OF   LINCOLN   AS   A   LAWYER. 

br$ad  and  milk,  and  you  ate  it ;  and  when  you  got  up 
you  said  it  was  good  enough  for  the  President  of  the 
United  States!' 

"The  good  woman  had  come  in  from  the  country, 
making  a  journey  of  eight  or  ten  miles,  to  relate  to 
Mr.  Lincoln  this  incident,  which,  in  her  mind,  had 
doubtless  taken  the  form  of  a  prophecy.  Mr.  Lincoln 
placed  the  honest  creature  at  her  ease,  chatted  with 
her  of  old  times,  and  dismissed  her  in  the  most  happy 
and  complacent  frame  of  mind." 


"I  AM  NOT  FIT  FOR  THE  PRESIDENCY." 

The  opening  of  the  year  1860  found  Mr.  Lincoln's 
name  freely  mentioned  in  connection  with  the  Repub 
lican  nomination  for  the  Presidency.  To  be  classed 
with  Seward,  Chase,  McLean,  and  other  celebrities  was 
enough  to  stimulate  any  Illinois  lawyer's  pride;  but  in 
Mr.  Lincoln's  case,  if  it  had  any  such  effect,  he  was 
most  artful  in  concealing  it.  Now  and  then,  some 
ardent  friend,  an  editor,  for  example,  would  run  his 
name  up  to  the  masthead,  but  in  all  cases  he  discour 
aged  the  attempt. 

"In  regard  to  the  matter  you  spoke  of, "  he  answered 
one  man  who  proposed  his  name,  * '  I  beg  you  will  not 
give  it  a  further  mention.  Seriously,  I  do  not  think 
I  am  fit  for  the  Presidency. ' ' 


SIX  FOOT  THREE  COMMITTEE  MAN. 

Tall  Judge  Kelly,  of  Pennsylvania,  who  was  one  of 
the  committee  to  inform  Mr.  Lincoln  of  his  nomiaa- 


STORIES   OF   LINCOLN   AS   A   LAWYER.    129 

tion  at  the  Chicago  Convention,  had  been  eyeing  Mr. 
Lincoln's  lofty  form  with  a'mixture  of  admiration,  and 
very  likely  jealousy.  This  had  not  escaped  Mr.  Lin 
coln,  and  as  he  shook  hands  with  the  Judge  he 
inquired:  "What  is  your  height?"  "Six  feet  three; 
what  is  yours,  Mr.  Lincoln?"  "Six  feet  four." 
"Then,"  said  the  Judge,  "Pennsylvania  bows  to  Illi 
nois.  My  dear  sir,  for  years  my  heart  has  been  aching 
for  a  President  that  I  could  look  up  to,  and  I've  found 
him  at  last  in  the  land  where  we  thought  there  were 
none  but  little  giants." 


A  VISIT  TO  THE  "FIVE  POINTS  HOUSE  OF  IN 
DUSTRY"  IN  NEW  YORK. 

When  Mr.  Lincoln  visited  New  York  in  1860,  he  felt 
*\  great  interest  in  many  of  the  institutions  for  reform 
ing  criminals  and  saving  the  young  from  a  life  of 
crime.  Among  others,  he  visited,  unattended,  the 
Five  Points  House  of  Industry,  and  the  superinten 
dent  of  the  Sabbath  school  there  gave  the  following 
account  of  the  event : 

"One  Sunday  morning  I  saw  a  tall,  remarkable- 
looking  man  enter  the  room  and  take  a  seat  among  us. 
He  listened  with  fixed  attention  to  our  exercises,  and 
his  countenance  expressed  such  genuine  interest  that 
I  approached  him  and  suggested  that  he  might  be 
willing  to  say  something  to  the  children.  He  accepted 
the  invitation  with  evident  pleasure,  and  coming  for 
ward  began  a  simple  address,  which  at  once  fascinated 
every  little  hearer  and  hushed  the  room  into  silence. 


i3o   STORIES   OF   LINCOLN   AS   A   LAWYER. 

His  language  was  strikingly  beautiful,  and  his  tones 
musical  with  intense  feeling.  The  little  faces  would 
droop  into  sad  conviction  when  he  uttered  sentences  of 
warning,  and  would  brighten  into  sunshine  as  he 
spoke  cheerful  words  of  promise.  Once  or  twice  he 
attempted  to  close  his  remarks,  but  the  imperative 
shout  of,  'Go  on!  Oh,  do  go  on!'  would  compel  him 
to  resume. 

"As  I  looked  upon  the  gaunt  and  sinewy  frame  of 
the  stranger,  and  marked  his  powerful  head  and 
determined  features,  now  touched  into  softness  by  the 
impressions  of  the  moment,  I  felt  an  irrepressible 
curiosity  to  learn  something  more  about  him,  and  while 
he  was  quietly  leaving  the  room,  I  begged  to  know 
his  name.  He  courteously  replied:  'It  is  Abraham 
Lincoln,  from  Illinois. '  " 


THE  UGLIEST  MAN. 

Mr.  Lincoln  enjoyed  a  joke  at  his  own  expense. 
Said  he:  "In  the  days  when  I  used  to  be  in  the  circuit, 
I  was  accosted  in  the  cars  by  a  stranger,  who  said, 
'Excuse  me,  sir,  but  I  have  an  article  in  my  possession 
which  belongs  to  you.'  'How  is  that?'  I  asked,  con 
siderably  astonished. 

"The  stranger  took  a  jackknife  from  his  pocket. 
'This  knife,'  said  he,  'was  placed  in  my  hands  some 
years  ago,  with  the  injunction  that  I  was  to  keep  it 
until  I  had  found  a  man  uglier  than  myself.  I  have 
carried  it  from  that  time  to  this.  Allow  me  to  say, 
sir,  that  I  think  you  are  fairly  entitled  to  the  prop 
erty.  '  " 


SPRINGFIELD  ILLINOIS 

f5*romihe  Da5!y  Journal  off  the  &th.) 


A   Political   Earthquake! 

THE  PRA8RIES   ON  FIRE 

FOR  LINCOLN! 


THE  BIGGEST  DEMONSTRATION  EVES 
HELD  IN  THE  WEST! 


75,000  REPUBLICANS  IN   COUNCIL  t 


IMMENSE  PROCESSION! 


Speaking  from  Five  Stands  by  Trumbull, 
Doolittle,  Kellogg,  Palmer,  Browning*  ^ 
Giilespic,  etc.,  etc. 


taAQNmCENT  TORCHLIGHT  PROCESSION  At  NIGHT. 


MBETWQ8  AT  TBE  WJOWAM  AND  TBBJK8& 
RSBSN7A  Tl  VES  HALL, 


STORIES  OF  LINCOLN   AS  A   LAWYER.    133 

THE  OLD  SIGN,  "LINCOLN  AND  HERNDON." 

Enduring  friendship  and  love  of  old  associations 
were  prominent  characteristics  of  President  Lincoln. 
When  about  to  leave  for  Washington,  he  went  to  the 
dingy  little  law  office  which  had  sheltered  his  saddest 
hours.  He  sat  down  on  the  couch,  and  said  to  his  law 
partner,  Hern  don,  "Billy,  you  and  I  have  been 
together  for  more  than  twenty  years,  and  have  never 
passed  a  word.  Will  you  let  my  name  stay  on  the  old 
sign  until  I  come  back  from  Washington?"  The  tears 
started  to  Mr.  Kernel  on 's  eyes.  He  put  out  his  hand. 
"Mr.  Lincoln,"  said  he,  "I  never  will  have  any  other 
partner  while  you  live";  and  to  the  day  of  assassina 
tion,  all  the  doings  of  the  firm  were  in  the  name  of 
"Lincoln  &  Herndon. " 


"HONEST  OLD  ABE." 

"An  old  man  hailing  from  Mississippi,  dressed  in 
plain  homespun,  came  to  our  city  Saturday.  He 
mingled  freely  with  the  Republican  Representatives, 
got  their  news,  and  seemed  to  think  we  are  not  quite 
so  black  as  we  are  represented. 

"He  called  on  Mr.  Lincoln,  talked  freely  with  him, 
and  heard  the  President-elect  express  his  sentiments 
and  intentions.  He  learned  that  Mr.  Lincoln  enter 
tained  none  but  the  kindest  feelings  towards  the  people 
of  the  South,  and  that  he  would  protect  the  South  in 
her  just  rights. 

"He  had  a  long  conversation,  and  went  away 
delighted.  He  left  the  office  of  Mr.  Lincoln  in  com 
pany  with  a  friend,  who  communicated  this  to  us,  and 


134  STORIES   OF   LINCOLN   AS  A   LAWYER. 

when  outside  the  door  he  remarked,  while  the  tears 
stole  down  his  furrowed  cheeks:  'Oh!  if  the  people  of 
the  South  could  hear  what  I  have  heard,  they  would 
love  and  not  hate  Mr.  Lincoln.  I  will  tell  my  friends 
at  home;  but,'  he  added  sorrowfully,  'they  will  not 
believe  me. '  He  said  that  he  did  wish  that  every  man 
in  the  South  could  be  personally  acquainted  with  Mr. 
Lincoln. ' ' 


Incidents  from  the  Presidential 
Career  of   Lincoln. 


THE  INAUGURATION— MARCH  4,  1861. 

The  procession  set  out  from  the  Executive  Mansion. 
President  Buchanan  there  entered  the  carriage,  which, 
drawn  by  four  horses,  and  preceded  by  the  Mar 
shal  of  the  District,  with  his  aids,  on  horseback, 
moved  out  of  the  grounds  to  the  avenue. 

In  front  of  Willard's  Hotel  a  halt  was  made.  Mr. 
Lincoln  walked  out  through  the  crowd,  which  civilly 
opened  a  lane  to  permit  him  to  pass,  and  entered  the 
carriage. 

Upon  arrival  at  the  Capitol  building  the  party  pro 
ceeded  at  once  to  the  platform,  when  Senator  Baker,  of 
Oregon,  spoke  with  his  silvery  voice  the  simple  words, 
"Fellow  citizens,  I  introduce  to  you  Abraham  Lincoln, 
the  President-elect  of  the  United  States  of  America." 

The  Rail-splitter,  as  he  was  popularly  known,  held 
the  vast  multitude  spellbound.  The  sentiments  of 
the  President-elect  could  not  be  mistaken :  "The  Union 
must  be,  should  be,  preserved."  "I  hold  that  in  the 

135 


136  PRESIDENTIAL   INCIDENTS. 

contemplation  of  universal  law,  and  of  the  Constitu 
tion,  the  Union  of  the  United  States  is  perpetual!" 
4 'I  shall  take  care,  as  the  Constitution  expressly  enjoins 
upon  me,  that  the  laws  of  the  Union  shall  be  faithfully 
executed  in  all  the  States!" 

"The  power  confided  to  me  will  be  used  to  hold, 
occupy,  and  possess  the  property  and  places  belonging 
to  the  Government/' 

4 'I  am  loath  to  close.  We  are  not  enemies,  but 
friends.  We  must  not  be  enemies.  Though  passion 
may  have  strained,  it  must  not  break  our  bonds  of 
affection." 

Lincoln  controlled  the  audience  at  his  will,  and  clos 
ing  with  these  memorable  words,  he  prepared  to  take 
the  oath  of  office : 

14  The  mystic  chords  of  memory,  stretching  from 
every  battle-field  and  patriotic  grave  to  every  living 
heart  and  hearthstone  all  over  this  broad  land,  will 
yet  swell  the  chorus  of  the  Union,  when  again  touched, 
as  surely  they  will  be." 

The  Chief  Justice  of  the  United  States  now  came 
forward.  His  venerable  appearance  gave,  to  what 
might  have  been  a  mere  matter  of  form,  great  dignity 
and  impressed  significance. 

He  extended  an  open  Bible,  upon  which  Mr.  Lincoln 
laid  his  left  hand,  and  uplifting  his  right  arm,  he 
slowly  repeated  after  the  Chief  Justice  the  words  of 
the  Constitution:  "I  do  solemnly  swear  that  I  will 
faithfully  execute  the  office  of  President  of  the  United 
States,  and  will,  to  the  best  of  my  ability,  preserve, 
protect,  and  defend  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States.  So  help  me  God ! ' ' 

The  ceremony  ended.     Then  those  upon  the  plat- 


PRESIDENTIAL   INCIDENTS.  139 

form  rose  and  remained  standing  as  the  President  and 
his  party  passed  back  into  the  building. 

The  procession  reformed  in  the  same  order  as 
before,  and  returned,  leaving  at  the  White  House  as 
President  of  the  United  States  the  private  citizen  it 
had  escorted  from  the  hotel.  Within  an  hour,  another 
carriage,  in  which  there  was  a  single  occupant,  was 
driven  down  the  avenue  to  the  only  railroad  station 
then  in  Washington. 

It  contained  Ex-President  Buchanan,  returning  as  a 
private  citizen  to  his  Pennsylvania  home. 


"I'LL  TRY  TO  STEER  HER  THROUGH." 

Gen.  John  A.  Logan  and  Mr.  Lovejoy,  of  Illinois, 
called  upon  Mr.  Lincoln  at  Willard's  Hotel,  Wash 
ington,  February  23,  the  morning  of  his  arrival,  and 
urged  a  vigorous,  firm  policy. 

Patiently  listening,  the  President  replied  seriously 
but  cheerfully,  "As  the  country  has  placed  me  at  the 
helm  of  the  ship,  I'll  try  to  steer  her  through." 


ONE  CONCEPTION  OF  THE  NEW  PRESIDENT. 

Soon  after  Mr.  Lincoln  began  his  Administration,  a 
distinguished  South  Carolina  lady,  the  widow  of  a 
Northern  scholar,  called  upon  him  out  of  curiosity. 

She  was  very  proud  and  aristocratic,  and  was  anxious 
to  see  this  monstrosity,  as  he  had  been  represented. 
Upon  being  presented  she  hissed  in  the  President's 
ear:  "I  am  a  South  Carolinian."  The  President, 


i4o  PRESIDENTIAL   INCIDENTS. 

taking  in  the  situation,  was  at  once  courteous  and  dig 
nified. 

After  a  pleasant  conversation,  she  said:  "Why,  Mr. 
Lincoln,  you  look,  act,  and  speak  like  a  kind,  good- 
hearted,  generous  man."  "And  did  you  expect  to 
meet  a  savage?"  said  he.  "Certainly  I  did,  or  even 
something  worse.  I  am  glad  I  have  met  you,  and 
now  the  best  way  to  preserve  peace  is  for  you  to  go  to 
Charleston,  and  show  the  people  what  you  are,  and  tell 
the  people  you  have  no  intention  of  injuring  them. " 
The  lady  attended  the  first  levee  after  the  inauguration. 


LINCOLN'S  UNCONVENTIONALITY  IN  RECEIVING 
OLD  FRIENDS  AT  THE  WHITE  HOUSE. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  habits  at  the  White  House  were  as 
simple  as  they  were  at  his  old  home  in  Illinois.  He 
never  alluded  to  himself  as  "President,"  or  as  occu 
pying  "the  Presidency."  His  office  he  always  desig 
nated  as  "the  place."  "Call  me  Lincoln,"  said  he  to  a 
friend;  "Mr.  President"  had  become  so  very  tiresome 
to  him.  "If  you  see  a  newsboy  down  the  street,  send 
him  up  this  way,"  said  he  to  a  passenger,  as  he  stood 
waiting  for  the  morning  news  at  his  gate.  Friends 
cautioned  him  about  exposing  himself  so  openly  in  the 
midst  of  enemies;  but  he  never  heeded  them.  He 
frequently  walked  the  streets  at  night,  entirely  unpro 
tected  ;  and  felt  any  check  upon  his  movements  a  great 
annoyance.  He  delighted  to  see  his  familiar  Western 
friends;  and  he  gave  them  always  a  cordial  welcome. 
He  met  them  on  the  old  footing,  and  fell  at  once  into 
the  accustomed  habits  of  talk  and  story-telling. 


PRESIDENTIAL   INCIDENTS.  141 

An  old  acquaintance,  with  his  wife,  visited  Washing 
ton.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lincoln  proposed  to  these  friends 
a  ride  in  the  Presidential  carriage.  It  should  be  stated 
in  advance  that  the  two  men  had  probably  never  seen 
each  other  with  gloves  on  in  their  lives,  unless  when 
they  were  used  as  protection  from  the  cold. 

The  question  of  each — Mr.  Lincoln  at  the  White 
House,  and  his  friend  at  the  hotel — was,  whether  he 
should  wear  gloves.  Of  course  the  ladies  urged 
gloves ;  but  Mr.  Lincoln  only  put  his  in  his  pocket,  to 
be  used  or  not,  according  to  the  circumstances. 

When  the  Presidential  party  arrived  at  the  hotel,  to 
take  in  their  friends,  they  found  the  gentleman,  over 
come  by  his  wife's  persuasions,  very  handsomely 
gloved.  The  moment  he  took  his  seat  he  began  to 
draw  off  the  clinging  kids,  while  Mr.  Lincoln  began  to 
draw  his  on! 

"No!  no!  no!"  protested  his  friend,  tugging  at  his 
gloves.  "It  is  none  of  my  doings ;  put  up  your  gloves, 
Mr.  Lincoln." 

So  the  two  old  friends  were  on  even  and  easy  terms, 
and  had  their  ride  after  their  old  fashion. 


REMARKABLE  MEMORY  OF  LINCOLN. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  memory  was  very  remarkable.  At 
one  of  the  afternoon  receptions  at  the-  White  House  a 
stranger  shook  hands  with  him,  and,  as  he  did  so, 
remarked  casually,  that  he  was  elected  to  Congress 
about  the  time  Mr.  Lincoln's  term  as  representative 
expired,  which  happened  many  years  before. 

"Yes/*   said  the   President,    "yon  are   from " 


i42  PRESIDENTIAL   INCIDENTS. 

(mentioning  the  State).  "I  remember  reading  of  your 
election  in  a  newspaper  one  morning  on  a  steamboat 
going  down  to  Mount  Vernon. ' ' 

At  another  time  a  gentleman  addressed  him,  saying, 
"I  presume,  Mr.  President,  you  have  forgotten  me?" 

"No,"  was  the  prompt  reply;  "your  name  is  Flood. 

I  saw  you  last,  twelve  years  ago,  at "  (naming  the 

place  and  the  occasion).  "I  am  glad  to  see,"  he  con 
tinued,  "that  the  Flood  goes  on." 

Subsequent  to  his  re-election  a  deputation  of  bankers 
from  various  sections  were  introduced  one  day  by  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  After  a  few  moments  of 
general  conversation,  Mr.  Lincoln,  turned  to  one  of 
them  and  said:  "Your  district  did  not  give  me  so 
strong  a  vote  at  the  last  election  as  it  did  in  1860." 

"I  think,  sir,  that  you  must  be  mistaken,"  replied 
the  banker.  "I  have  the  impression  that  your 
majority  was  considerably  increased  at  the  last  elec 
tion." 

"No,"  rejoined  the  President,  "you  fell  off  about  six 
hundred  votes."  Then  taking  down  from  the  book 
case  the  official  canvass  of  1860  and  1864,  he  referred 
to  the  vote  of  the  district  named,  and  proved  to  be 
quite  right  in  his  assertion. 


GENERAL  FISK'S  STORY  OF  THE  "SWEARING 
DRIVER." 

General  Fisk,  attending  the  reception  at  the  White 
House  on  one  occasion,  saw,  waiting  in  the  ante-room, 
a  poor  old  man  from  Tennessee.  Sitting  down  beside 
him,  he  inquired  his  errand,  and  learned  that  he  had 


PRESIDENTIAL   INCIDENTS.  143 

been  waiting  three  or  four  days  to  get  an  audience,  and 
that  on  his  seeing  Mr.  Lincoln  probably  depended  the 
life  of  his  son,  who  was  under  the  sentence  of  death 
for  some  military  offense. 

General  Fisk  wrote  his  case  in  outline  on  a  card,  and 
sent  it  in,  with  a  special  request  that  the  President 
would  see  the  man.  In  a  moment  the  order  came; 
and  past  senators,  governors,  and  generals,  waiting 
impatiently,  the  old  man  went  into  the  President's 
presence. 

He  showed  Mr.  Lincoln  his  papers,  and  he,  on  taking 
them,  said  he  would  look  into  the  case  and  give  him 
the  result  on  the  following  day. 

The  old  man,  in  an  agony  of  apprehension,  looked 
up  into  the  President's  sympathetic  face,  and  actually 
cried  out: 

"To-morrow  may  be  too  late!  My  son  is  under  sen 
tence  of  death!  The  decision  ought  to  be  made  now!" 
and  the  streaming  tears  told  how  much  he  was  moved. 

"Come,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "wait  a  bit,  and  I'll  tell 
you  a  story."  And  then  he  told  the  old  man  General 
Fisk's  story  about  the  swearing  driver,  as  follows: 

The  General  had  begun  his  military  life  as  a  colonel, 
and,  when  he  raised  his  regiment  in  Missouri,  he  pro 
posed  to  his  men  that  he  should  do  all  the  swearing  of 
the  regiment.  They  assented;  and  for  months  no 
instance  was  known  of  the  violation  of  the  promise. 
The  Colonel  had  a  teamster  named  John  Todd,  who,  as 
roads  were  not  always  best,  had  some  difficulty  in 
commanding  his  temper  and  his  tongue.  John  hap 
pened  to  be  driving  a  mule  team  through  a  series  of 
mud-holes  a  little  worse  than  usual,  when,  unable  to 
restrain  himself  any  longer,  he  burst  forth  into  a  vol- 


i44  PRESIDENTIAL  INCIDENTS. 

ley  of  energetic  oaths.  The  Colonel  took  notice  of  *he 
offense,  and  brought  John  to  an  account. 

"John,"  said  he,  "didn't  you  promise  to  let  me  do 
all  the  swearing  of  the  regiment?" 

"Yes,  I  did,  Colonel,"  he  replied,  "but  the  fact 
was,  the  swearing  had  to  be  done  then,  or  not  at  all, 
and  you  weren't  there  to  do  it." 

As  he  told  the  story,  the  old  man  forgot  his  boy,  and 
both  the  President  and  his  listener  had  a  hearty  laugh 
together  at  its  conclusion.  Then  he  wrote  a  few  words 
which  the  old  man  read,  and  in  which  he  found  new 
occasion  for  tears;  but  the  tears  were  tears  of  joy,  for 
the  words  saved  the  life  of  his  son. 


THE  PRESIDENT'S  MIND  WANDERED. 

An  amusing,  yet  touching,  instance  of  the  Presi 
dent's  preoccupation  of  mind  occurred  at  one  of  his 
levees  when  he  was  shaking  hands  with  a  host  of  visit 
ors  passing  him  in  a  continuous  stream.  An  intimate 
acquaintance  received  the  usual  conventional  hand 
shake  and  salutation,  but  perceiving  that  he  was  not 
recognized,  kept  his  ground  instead  of  moving  on,  and 
spoke  again ;  when  the  President,  roused  to  a  dim  con 
sciousness  that  something  unusual  had  happened,  per 
ceived  who  stood  before  him,  and,  seizing  his  friend's 
hand,  shook  it  again  heartily,  saying: 

"How  do  you  do?  How  do  you  do?  Excuse  me  for 
not  noticing  you.  I  was  thinking  of  a  man  down 
South." 

He  afterwards  privately  acknowledged  that  the 
"man  down  South"  was  Shern?an,  then  on  his  march 
to  the  sea. 


LINCOLN   RECEIVING    DENNIS   HANKS. 


PRESIDENTIAL   INCIDENTS.  147 

HEARTY  WELCOME  OF  DENNIS  HANKS  AT  THE 
WHITE  HOUSE. 

Dennis  Hanks  was  once  asked  to  visit  Washington  to 
secure  the  pardon  of  certain  persons  in  jail  for  partici 
pation  in  copperheadism.  Dennis  went  and  arrived  in 
Washington,  and  instead  of  going,  as  he  said,  to  a 
"tavern,"  he  went  to  the  White  House.  There  was  a 
porter  on  guard,  and  he  asked : 

"Is  Abe  in?" 

"Do  you  mean  Mr.  Lincoln?"  asked  the  porter. 

"Yes;  is  he  in  there?"  and  brushing  the  porter  aside 
he  strode  into  the  room  and  said,  "Hello,  Abe;  how 
are  you?" 

And  Abe  said,  "Well!"  and  just  gathered  him  up  in 
his  arms  and  talked  of  the  days  gone  by. 

Oh,  the  days  gone  by!  They  talked  of  their  boy 
hood  days,  and  by  and  by  Lincoln  said : 

"What  brings  you  here  all  the  way  from  Illinois?" 

And  then  Dennis  told  him  his  mission,  and  Lincoln 
replied : 

"I  will  grant  it,  Dennis,  for  old-times'  sake.  I  will 
send  for  Mr.  Stanton.  It  is  his  business." 

Stanton  came  into  the  room,  and  strolled  up  and 
down,  and  said  that  the  men  ought  to  be  punished 
more  than  they  were.  Mr.  Lincoln  sat  quietly  in  his 
chair  and  waited  for  the  tempest  to  subside,  and  then 
quietly  said  to  Stanton  he  would  like  to  have  the 
papers  next  day. 

When  he  had  gone  Dennis  said : 

"Abe,  if  I  was  as  big  and  as  ugly  as  you  are,  I 
would  take  him  over  my  knee  and  spank  him. ' ' 

Lincoln  replied :  "No,  Stanton  is  an  able  and  valu- 


i48  PRESIDENTIAL   INCIDENTS. 

able  man  for  this  nation,  and  I  am  glad  to  bear  his 
anger  for  the  service  he  can  give  this  nation." 


THE  INTERVIEWS. 

Modesty  and  obscurity  are  mingled  with  arrogance 
of  pride  and  distinction  in  the  interviews  that  the 
Chief  Executive  of  the  nation  is  forced  to  endure. 

One  day  an  attractively  and  handsomely-dressed 
woman  called  to  procure  the  release  from  prison  of  a 
relation  in  whom  she  professed  the  deepest  interest. 

She  was  a  good  talker,  and  her  winning  ways  seemed 
to  be  making  a  deep  impression  on  the  President. 
After  listening  to  her  story,  he  wrote  a  few  words  on 
a  card:  "This  woman,  dear  Stanton,  is  a  little  smarter 
than  she  looks  to  be,"  enclosed  it  in  an  envelope  and 
directed  her  to  take  it  to  the  Secretary  of  War. 

On  the  same  day  another  woman  called,  more  hum 
ble  in  appearance,  more  plainly  clad.  It  was  the  old 
story. 

Father  and  son  both  in  the  army,  the  former  in 
prison.  Could  not  the  latter  be  discharged  from  the 
army  and  sent  home  to  help  his  mother? 

A  few  strokes  of  the  pen,  a  gentle  nod  of  the  head, 
and  the  little  woman,  her  eyes  filling  with  tears  and 
expressing  a  grateful  acknowledgment  her  tongue 
could  not  utter,  passed  out. 

A  lady  so  thankful  for  the  release  of  her  husband 
was  in  the  act  of  kneeling  in  thankfulness.  "Get  up," 
he  said,  "don't  kneel  to  me,  but  thank  God  and  go." 

An  old  lady  for  the  same  reason  came  forward  with 
tears  in  her  eyes  to  express  her  gratitude.  "Good 
bye,  Mr.  Lincoln,"  said  she;  "I  shall  probably  never 


PRESIDENTIAL    INCIDENTS.  149 

see  you  again  till  we  meet  in  heaven."  She  had  the 
President's  hand  in  hers,  and  he  was  deeply  moved. 
He  instantly  took  her  right  hand  in  both  of  his,  and 
following  her  to  the  door,  said,  "I  am  afraid  with  all 
my  troubles  I  shall  never  get  to  the  resting-place  you 
speak  of;  but  if  I  do,  I  am  sure  I  shall  find  you.  That 
you  wish  me  to  get  there  is,  I  believe,  the  best  wish 
you  could  make  for  me.  Good-bye."  Then  the 
President  remarked  to  a  friend,  tllt  is  more  than  many 
can  often  say,  that  in  doin<^  right  one  has  made  two 
people  happy  in  one  day.  Speed,  die  when  I  may,  I 
want  it  said  of  me  by  those  who  know  me  best,  that  I 
have  always  plucked  n  thistle  and  planted  a  flower 
when  I  thought  a  flower  would  grow." 


THE  PRESIDENCY  NOT  A  BED  OF  ROSES. 

An  old  and  intimate  friend  from  Springfield  called 
on  the  President  and  found  him  much  depressed. 

The  President  was  reclining  on  a  sofa,  but  rising 
suddenly,  he  said  to  his  friend : 

"You  know  better  than  any  man  living  that  from 
my  boyhood  up  my  ambition  was  to  be  President.  I 
am  President  of  one  part  of  this  divided  country  at  least ; 
but  look  at  me!  Oh,  I  wish  I  had  never  been  born! 
I've  a  white  elephant  on  my  hands,  one  hard  to  manage. 
With  a  fire  in  my  front  and  rear  to  contend  with,  the 
jealousies  of  the  military  commanders,  and  not  receiv 
ing  that  cordial  co-operative  support  from  Congress 
that  could  reasonably  be  expected  with  an  active  and 
formidable  enemy  in  the  field  threatening  the  very 
life-blood  of  the  Government,  my  position  is  anything 
but  a  bed  of  roses." 


150  PRESIDENTIAL   INCIDENTS. 

UNHEALTHY  GROUP  OF  OFFICE  SEEKERS. 

A  delegation  was  pressing  the  claims  of  a  gentleman 
as  commissioner  to  the  Sandwich  Islands.  Among  the 
many  points  urged  was  that  the  applicant  was  in  poor 
health.  The  President  closed  the  interview  with  the 
good-natured  remark :  "Gentlemen,  I  am  sorry  to  say 
that  there  are  eight  other  applicants  for  that  place,  and 
they  are  all  sicker  than  your  man. ' ' 


THE  OLD  LADY  AND  THE  PAIR  OF  STOCKINGS. 

An  old  lady  from  the  country  called  on  the  Presi 
dent,  her  tanned  face  peering  out  from  the  interior  of 
a  huge  sunbonnet.  Her  errand  was  to  present  Mr. 
Lincoln  a  pair  of  stockings  of  her  own  make  a  yard 
long. 

Kind  tears  came  to  his  eyes  as  she  spoke  to  him,  and 
then,  holding  the  stockings  one  in  each  hand,  dangling 
wide  apart  for  general  inspection,  he  assured  her  that 
he  should  take  them  with  him  to  Washington,  where 
(and  here  his  eyes  twinkled)  he  was  sure  he  should  not 
.  be  able  to  find  any  like  them.  The  amusement  of  the 
company  was  not  at  all  diminished  by  Mr.  Boutwell's 
remark,  that  the  lady  had  evidently  made  a  very  cor 
rect  estimate  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  latitude  and  longitude. 


THE  PRESIDENT  WIELDS  AN  AX  AT  THE  WASHING 
TON  NAVY  YARDS. 

One  afternoon  during  the  summer  of  1862,  the  Presi 
dent  accompanied  several  gentlemen  to  the  Washing 
ton  Navy  Yard  to  witness  some  experiments  with  a 


PRESIDENTIAL   INCIDENTS.  151 

newly-invented  gun.  Subsequently  the  party  went 
aboard  one  of  the  steamers  lying  at  the  wharf.  A  dis 
cussion  was  going  on  as  to  the  merits  of  the  invention, 
in  the  midst  of  which  Mr.  Lincoln  caught  sight  of  some 
axes  hanging  up  outside  of  the  cabin.  Leaving  the 
group,  he  quietly  went  forward,  and  taking  one  down, 
returned  with  it,  and  said: 

"Gentlemen,  you  may  talk  about  your  'Raphael 
repeaters'  and  'eleven-inch  Dahlgrens,'  but  here  is  an 
institution  which  I  guess  I  understand  better  than 
either  of  you. "  With  that  he  held  the  ax  out  at  arm's 
length  by  the  end  of  the  handle,  or  "helve,"  as  the 
wood-cutters  call  it — a  feat  not  another  person  in  the 
party  could  perform,  though  all  made  the  attempt. 

In  such  acts  as  this,  showing  that  he  neither  forgot 
nor  was  ashamed  of  his  humble  origin,  the  good  Presi 
dent  exhibited  his  true  nobility  of  character.  He  was 
a  favorite  illustration  of  his  favorite  poet's  words: 

"The  rank  is  but  the  guinea's  stamp, 
The  man's  the  gold,  for  a*  that!" 


A  PETITIONER'S  SUDDEN  CHANGE  OF  MIND. 

The  President  was  feeling  indisposed,  and  had  sent 
for  his  physician,  who  upon  his  arrival  informed  the 
President  that  his  trouble  was  either  varioloid,  or  mild 
smallpox.  "They're  all  over  me.  Is  it  contagious?" 
said  Mr.  Lincoln.  "Yes,"  answered  the  Doctor, 
'  *  very  contagious,  indeed. ' ' 

"Well,"  said  a  visitor,  "I  can't  stop.  I  just  called 
to  see  you. ' ' 


152  PRESIDENTIAL   INCIDENTS. 

"Oh,  don't  be  in  a  hurry,  sir,"  placidly  said  the 
President. 

"Thank  you,  sir;  I'll  call  again,"  retreating 
abruptly. 

"Some  people,"  said  the  Executive,  looking  after 
him,  "said  they  could  not  take  very  well  to  my  procla 
mation,  but  now,  I  am  happy  to  say,  I  have  something 
that  everybody  can  take." 


"THOROUGH." 

Some  one  came  to  the  President  with  a  story  about  a 
plot  to  accomplish  some  mischief  in  the  Government. 
Lincoln  listened  to  what  was  a  very  superficial  and  ill- 
formed  story,  and  then  said:  "There  is  one  thing 
that  I  have  learned,  and  that  you  haVe  riot.  It  is  only 
one  word — 'thorough.'  '  Then,  bringing  his  hand 
down  on  the  table  with  a  thump  to  emphasize  his 
meaning,  he  added,  "thorough." 


MR.  LINCOLN'S  TACT. 

Two  young  men  called  on  the  President  from  Spring 
field,  111.  Mr.  Lincoln  shook  hands  with  them,  and 
asked  about  the  crops,  the  weather,  etc.  Finally  one 
of  the  young  men  said,  "Mother  is  not  well,  and  she 
sent  me  up  to  inquire  of  you  how  the  suit  about  the 
Wells  property  is  getting  on."  Mr.  Lincoln,  in  the 
same  even  tone  with  which  he  had  asked  the  question, 
said:  "Give  my  best  wishes  and  respects  to  your 
mother,  and  tell  her  that  I  have  so  many  outside  mat 
ters  to  attend  to  now,  that  I  have  put  that  case,  and 


PRESIDENTIAL   INCIDENTS.  153 

others,  in  the  hands  of  a  lawyer  friend  of  mine,  and  if 
you  will  call  on  him"  (giving  name  and  address),  "he 
will  give  you  the  information  you  want."  After  they 
had  gone,  I  said:  "Mr.  Lincoln,  you  did  not  seem  to 
know  the  young  men?"  He  laughed  and  said:  "No, 
1  had  never  seen  them  before,  and  I  had  to  beat 
around  the  bush  until  I  found  who  they  were.  It  was 
uphill  work,  but  I  topped  it  at  last." 


LINCOLN'S  HAIR. 

"By  the  way,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln  to  Colonel  Cannon, 
"I  can  tell  you  a  good  story  about  my  hair.  When  I 
was  nominated  at  Chicago,  an  enterprising  fellow 
thought  that  a  great  many  people  would  like  to  see 
how  Abe  Lincoln  looked,  and,  as  I  had  not  long  before 
sat  for  a  photograph,  the  fellow,  having  seen  it,  rushed 
over  and  bought  the  negative. 

"He  at  once  got  no  end  of  wood-cuts,  and  so  active 
was  their  circulation  they  were  soon  selling  in  all  parts 
of  the  country. 

"Soon  after  they  reached  Springfield.  I  heard  a 
boy  crying  them  for  sale  on  the  streets.  'Here's  your 
likeness  of  Abe  Lincoln!'  he  shouted.  'Buy  one, 
price  only  two  shillings !  Will  look  a  great  deal  better 
when  he  gets  his  hair  combed ! '  " 


"OH,  PA!  HE  ISN'T  UGLY!" 

Lincoln's  great  love  for  children  easily  won  their 
confidence. 

A  little  girl,  who  had  been  told  that  the  President 


154  PRESIDENTIAL   INCIDENTS. 

was  very  homely,  was  taken  by  her  father  to  see  the 
President  at  the  White  House.  Mr.  Lincoln  took  her 
upon  his  knee  and  chatted  with  her  for  a  moment  in 
his  merry  way,  when  she  turned  to  her  father  and 
exclaimed:  "Oh,  Pa!  he  isn't  ugly  at  all;  he's  beau 
tiful!" 


SIMPLICITY. 

Mr.  Jeriah  Bonham  describes  a  visit  that  he  paid  Mr. 
Lincoln  at  his  room  in  the  State  House,  where  he 
found  him  quite  alone  except  that  two  of  his  children, 
one  of  whom  was  Tad,  were  with  him. 

The  door  was  open. 

We  walked  in  and  were  at  once  recognized  and 
seated — the  two  boys  still  continuing  their  play  about 
the  room.  Tad  was  spinning  his  top;  and  Mr.  Lin 
coln,  as  we  entered,  had  just  finished  adjusting  the 
string  for  him  so  as  to  give  the  top  the  greatest  degree 
of  force.  He  remarked  that  he  was  having  a  little  fun 
with  the  boys. 

At  another  time,  at  Lincoln's  residence,  Tad  came 
into  the  room,  and  putting  his  hand  to  his  mouth,  and 
his  mouth  to  his  father's  ear,  said  in  a  boy's  whisper, 
4  *  Ma  says  come  to  supper. ' ' 

All  heard  the  announcement,  and  Mr.  Lincoln,  per 
ceiving  this,  said:  "You  have  heard,  gentlemen,  the 
announcement  concerning  the  interesting  state  of 
things  in  the  dining-room.  It  will  never  do  for  me,  if 
elected,  to  make  this  young  man  a  member  of  my 
cabinet,  for  it  is  plain  he  cannot  be  trusted  with  secrets 
of  state." 


PRESIDENTIAL   INCIDENTS.  155 

MR.  LINCOLN'S  GREAT  LOVE  FOR  LITTLE  TAD. 

No  matter  who  was  with  the  President,  or  how 
intently  absorbed,  his  little  son  Tad  was  always  wel 
come.  He  almost  always  accompanied  his  father. 
Once,  on  the  way  to  Fortress  Monroe,  he  became  very 
troublesome.  The  President  was  much  engaged  in 
conversation  with  the  party  who  accompanied  him,  and 
he  at  length  said : 

"Tad,  if  you  will  be  a  good  boy,  and  not  disturb  me 
any  more  until  we  get  to  Fortress  Monroe,  I  will  give 
you  a  dollar. ' ' 

The  hope  of  reward  was  effectual  for  a  while  in 
securing  silence,  but,  boy-like,  Tad  soon  forgot  his 
promise,  and  was  as  noisy  as  ever.  Upon  reaching 
their  destination,  however,  he  said,  very  promptly, 
"Father,  I  want  my  dollar." 

Mr.  Lincoln  looked  at  him  half-reproachfully  for  an 
instant,  and  then  taking  from  his  pocketbook  a  dollar 
note,  he  said:  "Well,  my  son,  at  any  rate,  I  will  keep 
my  part  of  the  bargain. ' ' 

While  paying  a  visit  to  Commodore  Porter,  of  Fort 
ress  Monroe,  on  one  occasion,  an  incident  occurred, 
subsequently  related  by  Lieutenant  Braine,  one  of 
the  officers  on  board  the  flag-ship,  to  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Ewer,  of  New  York.  Noticing  that  the  "banks  of 
the  river  were  dotted  with  spring  blossoms,  the  Presi 
dent  said,  with  the  manner  of  one  asking  a  special 
favor : 

"Commodore,  Tad  is  very  fond  of  flowers;  won't 
you  let  a  couple  of  your  men  take  a  boat  and  go  with 
him  for  an  hour  or  two  along  the  shore,  and  gather  a 
few?  It  will  be  a  great  gratification  to  him. " 


156  PRESIDENTIAL    INCIDENTS. 

THE  HARDEST  TRIAL  OF  LINCOLN'S  LIFE. 

In  February,  1862,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  visited  by  a 
severe  affliction  in  the  death  of  his  beautiful  son, 
Willie,  and  the  extreme  illness  of  his  son  Thomas, 
familiarly  called  "Tad."  This  was  a  new  burden,  and 
the  visitation  which,  in  his  firm  faith  in  Providence,  he 
regarded  as  providential,  was  also  inexplicable.  A 
Christian  lady  from  Massachusetts,  who  was  officiating 
as  nurse  in  one  of  the  hospitals  at  the  time,  came  to 
attend  the  sick  children.  She  reports  that  Mr.  Lincoln 
watched  with  her  about  the  bedside  of  the  sick  ones, 
and  that  he  often  walked  the  room,  saying  sadly: 

"This  is  the  hardest  trial  of  my  life;  why  is  it? 
Why  is  it?" 

In  the  course  of  conversation  with  her,  he  ques 
tioned  her  concerning  his  situation.  She  told  him  that 
she  was  a  widow,  and  that  her  husband  and  two  chil 
dren  were  in  heaven ;  and  added  that  she  saw  the  hand 
of  God  in  it  all,  and  that  she  had  never  loved  him  so 
much  before  as  she  had  since  her  affliction. 

"How  is  that  brought  about?"  inquired  Mr.  Lincoln. 

"Simply  by  trusting  in  God  and  feeling  that  he  does 
all  things  well, ' '  she  replied. 

"Did  you  submit  fully  under  the  first  loss?"  he  asked. 

"No,"  she  answered,  "not  wholly;  but,  as  blow  came 
upon  blow,  and  all  were  taken,  I  could  and  did  submit, 
and  was  very  happy. ' ' 

He  responded:  "I  am  glad  to  hear  you  say  that. 
Your  experience  will  help  me  to  bear  my  affliction." 

On  being  assured  that  many  Christians  were  praying 
for  him  on  the  morning  of  the  funeral,  he  wiped  away 
the  tears  that  sprang  in  his  eyes,  and  said : 


LINCOLN  AND   HIS   SON    "TAD. 


PRESIDENTIAL    INCIDENTS.  159 

"I  am  glad  to  hear  that.  I  want  them  to  pray  for 
me.  I  need  their  prayers. ' ' 

As  he  was  going  out  to  the  burial,  the  good  lady 
expressed  her  sympathy  with  him.  He  thanked  her 
gently,  and  said: 

"I  will  try  to  go  to  God  with  my  sorrows." 

A  few  days  afterward  she  asked  him  if  he  could  trust 
God.  He  replied : 

"I  think  I  can,  and  will  try.  I  wish  I  had  that 
childlike  faith  you  speak  of,  and  I  trust  he  will  give  it 
to  me."  And  then  he  spoke  of  his  mother,  whom  so 
many  years  before  he  had  committed  to  the  dust 
among  tlie  wilds  of  Indiana.  In  this  hour  of  his  great 
trial  the  memory  of  her  who  had  held  him  upon  her 
bosom,  and  soothed  his  childish  griefs,  came  back  to 
him  with  tenderest  recollections.  "I  remember  her 
prayers,"  said  he,  "and  they  have  always  followed  me. 
They  have  clung  to  me  all  my  life." 


DEATH  OF  LINCOLN'S  FAVORITE  SON. 

Mr.  Lincoln  regarded  the  death  of  his  favorite  son  as 
the  turning-point  in  his  spiritual  history.  He  said, 
"That  blow  overwhelmed  me.  It  showed  me  my 
weakness  as  I  had  never  felt  it  before." 

Again,  in  1862,  at  Fortress  Monroe,  after  having 
read  the  discussion  between  Hamlet  and  his  courtiers, 
and  the  soliloquy  in  which  conscience  debates  of  t\ 
future  state,  also  where  Constance  bewails  her  impris 
oned  lost  boy ;  then,  closing  the  book,  and  recalling  the 
words,  "And,  Father  Cardinal,  I  have  heard  you  say, 
that  we  shall  see  and  know  our  friends  in  heaven. "  "If 


160  PRESIDENTIAL    INCIDENTS. 

that  be  true,  I  shall  see  my  boy  again, ' '  Mr.  Lincoln 
said:  "Colonel  [Cannon],  did  you  ever  dream  of  a  lost 
friend,  and  feel  that  you  were  holding  sweet  com 
munion  with  that  friend,  and  yet  have  a  sad  conscious 
ness  that  it  was  not  a  reality?  Just  so  I  dream  of  my 
boy  Willie. ' '  Overcome  with  emotion,  he  dropped  his 
head  on  his  Bible,  and  sobbed  aloud. 


HOW   YOUNG   DANIEL  WEBSTER   ESCAPES   A  FLOG 
GING,  AS  RELATED  BY  LINCOLN. 

Mr.  Lincoln,  on  one  occasion,  narrated  to  Hon.  Mr. 
Odell  and  others,  with  much  zest,  the  following  story 
about  young  Daniel  Webster: 

When  quite  young,  at  school,  Daniel  was  one  day 
guilty  of  a  gross  violation  of  the  rules.  He  was 
detected  in  the  act,  and  called  up  by  the  teacher  for 
punishment.  This  was  to  be  the  old-fashioned 
"feruling"  of  the  hand.  His  hands  happened  to  be 
very  dirty.  Knowing  this,  on  the  way  to  the  teacher's 
desk,  he  spit  upon  the  palm  of  his  right  hand,  wipi rig- 
it  off  upon  the  side  of  his  pantaloons. 

4 'Give  me  your  hand,  sir,"  said  the  teacher,  very 
sternly. 

Out  went  the  right  hand,  partly  cleansed.  The 
teacher  looked  at  it  a  moment,  and  said : 

''Daniel,  if  you  will  find  another  hand  in  this 
schoolroom  as  filthy  as  that,  I  will  let  you  off  this 
time. ' ' 

Instantly  from  behind  the  back  came  the  left  hand. 
1 4  Here  it  is,  sir, ' '  was  the  ready  reply. 

"That  will  do,"  said  the  teacher,  "for  this  time; 
you  can  take  your  seat,  sir." 


PRESIDENTIAL   INCIDENTS.  161 

"MOTHER,  HE'S  JUST  THE  SAME  OLD  ABE," 

"It  was  during  the  dark  days  of  1863,"  says 
Schuyler  Coif  ax,  "on  the  evening  of  a  public  reception 
given  at  the  White  House.  The  foreign  legations 
were  there  gathered  about  the  President. 

A  young  English  nobleman  was  just  being  presented 
to  the  President.  Inside  the  door,  evidently  overawed 
by  the  splendid  assemblage,  was  an  honest-faced  old 
farmer,  who  shrank  from  the  passing  crowd  until  he 
and  the  plain-faced  old  lady  clinging  to  his  arm  were 
pressed  back  to  the  wall. 

The  President,  tall,  and,  in  a  measure,  stately  in  his 
personal  presence,  looking  over  the  heads  of  the 
assembly,  said  to  the  English  nobleman:  "Excuse  me, 
my  Lord,  there's  an  old  friend  of  mine." 

Passing  backward  to  the  door,  Mr.  Lincoln  said,  as 
he  grasped  the  old  farmer's  hand: 

"Why,  John,  I'm  glad  to  see  you.  I  haven't  seen 

you  since  you  and  I  made  rails  for  old  Mrs.  ,  in 

Sangamon  County,  in  1837.  How  are  you?" 

The  old  man  turned  to  his  wife  with  quivering  lip, 
and  without  replying  to  the  President's  salutation,  said : 

"Mother,  he's  just  the  same  old  Abe!" 

"Mr.  Lincoln,"  he  said  finally,  "you  know  we  had 
three  boys;  they  all  enlisted  in  the  same  company; 
John  was  killed  in  the  'seven  days'  fight';  Sam  was 
taken  prisoner  and  starved  to  death,  and  Henry  is  in 
the  hospital.  We  had  a  little  money,  an'  I  said, 
'Mother,  we'll  go  to  Washington  and  see  him.  An' 
while  we  were  here,'  I  said,  'we'll  go  up  and  see  the 
President.'  " 

Mr.  Lincoln's  eyes  grew  dim,  and  across  his  rugged, 


162  PRESIDENTIAL    INCIDENTS. 

homely,   tender  face  swept  the  wave  of  sadness  his 
friends  had  learned  to  know,  and  he  said : 

"John,  we  all  hope  this  miserable  war  will  soon  be 
over.  I  must  see  all  these  folks  here  for  an  hour  or 
so,  and  I  want  to  talk  with  you. ' '  The  old  lady  and 
her  husband  were  hustled  into  a  private  room,  in  spite 
of  their  protests,  

"TIME  LOST  DON'T  COUNT." 

Mr.  Weed,  the  veteran  journalist  and  politician, 
relates  how,  when  he  was  opposing  the  claims  of 
Montgomery  Blair,  who  aspired  to  a  cabinet  appoint 
ment,  when  Mr.  Lincoln  inquired  of  Mr.  Weed  whom 
he  would  recommend,  "Henry  Winter  Davis,"  was 
the  response.  "David  Davis,  I  see,  has  been  posting 
you  up  on  this  question,"  retorted  Lincoln.  "He  has 
Davis  on  the  brain.  I  think  Maryland  must  be  a  good 
State  to  move  from. ' '  The  President  then  told  a  story 
of  a  witness  in  court  in  a  neighboring  county,  who,  on 
being  asked  his  age,  replied,  "Sixty."  Being  satisfied 
he  was  much  older  the  question  was  repeated,  and  on 
receiving  the  same  answer  the  court  admonished  the 
witness,  saying,  "The  court  knows  you  to  be  much 
older  than  sixty." 

"Oh,  I  understand  now,"  was  there  joinder,  "you're 
thinking  of  those  ten  years  I  spent  on  the  eastern  shore 
of  Maryland ;  that  was  so  much  time  lost,  and  didn't 
count." 


CABINET  RECONSTRUCTION. 

The  President  had  decided  to  select  a  new  war  min 
ister,  and  the  leading  Republican  Senators  thought  the 


PRESIDENTIAL   INCIDENTS.  163 

occasion  was  opportune  to  change  the  whole  seven 
Cabinet  ministers.  They,  therefore,  earnestly  advised 
him  to  make  a  clean  sweep,  and  select  seven  new  men, 
and  so  restore  the  waning  confidence  of  the  country. 
The  President  listened  with  patient  courtesy,  and  when 
the  Senators  had  concluded  he  said,  with  a  character 
istic  gleam  of*humor  in  his  eye: 

4 'Gentlemen,  your  request  for  a  change  of  the  whole 
Cabinet  because  I  have  made  one  change,  reminds  me 
of  a  story  I  once  heard  in  Illinois,  of  a  farmer  who 
was  much  troubled  by  skunks.  His  wife  insisted  on 
his  trying  to  get  rid  of  them.  He  loaded  his  shotgun 
one  moonlight  night  and  awaited  developmen  ts.  After 
some  time  the  wife  heard  the  shotgun  go  off,  and,  in  a 
few  minutes,  the  farmer  entered  the  house.  'What 
luck  have  you?'  said  she.  'I  hid  myself  behind  the 
wood-pile,'  said  the  old  man,  'with  the  shotgun  pointed 
towards  the  hen  roost,  and  before  long  there  appeared 
not  one  skunk,  but  seven.  I  took  aim,  blazed  away, 
killed  one,  and  he  raised  such  a  fearful  smell  that  I  con- 
. eluded  it  was  best  to  let  the  other  six  go. ' ' 

The  Senators  laughed  and  retired. 


HE'S  ALL  RIGHT;  BUT  A  CHRONIC  SQUEALER. 

One  of  the  Northern  Governors  was  able,  earnest, 
and  untiring  in  aiding  the  administration,  but  always 
complaining.  After  reading  all  his  papers,  the  Presi 
dent  said,  in  a  cheerful  and  reassuring  tone: 

"Never  mind,  never  mind;  those  dispatches  don't 
mean  anything.  Just  go  right  ahead.  The  Governor 
is  like  a  boy  I  saw  once  at  a  launching.  When  every- 


164  PRESIDENTIAL   INCIDENTS. 

thing  was  ready,  they  picked  out  a  boy  and  sent  him 
under  the  ship  to  knock  away  the  trigger  and  let  her 
go.  At  the  critical  moment  everything  depended  on 
the  boy.  He  had  to  do  the  job  well  by  a  direct, 
vigorous  blow,  and  then  He  flat  and  keep  still  while 
the  boat  slid  over  him. 

"The  boy  did  everything  right,  but  he  yelled  as  if 
he  were  being  murdered  from  the  time  he  got  under 
the  keel  until  he  got  out.  I  thought  the  hide  was  all 
scraped  off  his  back;  but  he  wasn't  hurt  at  all. 

"The  master  of  the  yard  told  me  that  this  boy  was 
always  chosen  for  that  job,  that  he  did  his  work  well, 
that  he  never  had  been  hurt,  but  that  he  always 
squealed  in  that  way.  That's  just  the  way  with 

Governor .  Make  up  your  mind  that  he  is  not 

hurt,  and  that  he  is  doing  the  work  right,  and  pay  no 
attention  to  his  squealing.  He  only  wants  to  make 
you  understand  how  hard  his  task  is,  and  that  he  is  on 
hand  performing  it. ' ' 


SECRETARY  STANTON'S  UNCOMPLIMENTARY 
OPINION. 

Mr.  Lovejoy,  heading  a  committee  of  western  men, 
discussed  an  important  scheme  with  the  President,  and 
was  then  directed  to  explain  it  to  Secretary  Stanton. 
Upon  presenting  themselves  to  the  Secretary,  and 
showing  the  President's  order,  the  Secretary  said, 
"Did  Lincoln  give  you  an  order  of  that  kind?"  "He 

did,  sir."     "Then  he  is  a  d d  fool,"  said  the  angry 

Secretary.     "Do  you  mean  to  say  that  the  President  is 

ad d  fool?"  asked  Lovejoy,  in  amazement.     "Yes, 

sir,  if  he  gave  you  such  an  order  as  that." 


PRESIDENTIAL   INCIDENTS.  165 

The  bewildered  Illinoisan  betook  himself  at  once  to 
the  President  and  related  the  result  of  the  conference. 

"Did  Stanton  say  I  was  a  d d  fool?"  asked  Lincoln, 

at  the  close  of  the  recital.  "He  did,  sir,  and  repeated 
it."  After  a  moment's  pause,  and  looking  up,  the 

President  said:    "If  Stanton  said  I  was  a  d d  fool, 

then  I  must  be  one,  for  he  is  nearly  always  right,  and 
generally  says  what  he  means.  I  will  slip  over  and 
see  him." 

LINCOLN'S  MODESTY. 

Secretary  Chase,  when  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
had  a  disagreement,  and  the  Secretary  had  resigned. 

The  President  was  urged  not  to  accept  it,  as  "Secre 
tary  Chase  is  to-day  a  national  necessity,"  his  advisers 
said.  "How  mistaken  you  are!"  he  quietly  observed. 
"Yet  it  is  not  strange;  I  used  to  have  similar  notions. 
No!  if  we  should  all  be  turned  out  to-morrow,  and 
could  come  back  here  in  a  week,  we  should  find  our 
places  filled  by  a  lot  of  fellows  doing  just  as  well  as  we 
did,  and  in  many  instances  better. 

"As  the  Irishman  said,  'In  this  country  one  man  is 
as  good  as  another ;  and,  for  the  matter  of  that,  very 
often  a  great  deal  better.'  No;  this  Government  does 
not  depend  upon  the  life  of  any  man." 


AN  INCIDENT  IN  LINCOLN'S  SECOND  INAUGU 
RATION. 

Noah  Brooks,  in  his  "Reminiscences,"  relates  the 
following  incident: 

While  the  ceremonies  of  the  second  inauguration 
were  in  progress,  just  as  Lincoln  stepped  forward  to 


166  PRESIDENTIAL   INCIDENTS. 

take  the  oath  of  office,  the  sun,  which  had  been 
obscured  by  rain-clouds,  burst  in  splendor.  In  con 
versation  the  next  day,  the  President  asked : 

"Did  you  notice  that  sun-burst?  It  made  my  heart 
jump." 

Later  in  the  month,  Miss  Anna  Dickinson,  in  a  lec 
ture  delivered  in  the  hall  of  the  House  of  Represent 
atives,  eloquently  alluded  to  the  sun-burst  as  a  happy 
omen.  The  President-  sat  directly  in  front  of  the 
speaker,  and  from  the  reporters'  gallery,  behind  her, 
I  had  caught  his  eye,  soon  after  he  sat  down.  When 
Miss  Dickinson  referred  to  the  sunbeam,  he  looked  up 
to  me,  involuntarily,  and  I  thought  his  eyes  were 
suffused  with  moisture.  Perhaps  they  were ;  but  the 
next  day  he  said : 

"I  wonder  if  Miss  Dickinson  saw  me  wink  at  you?" 


KINDNESS  OF  HEART. 

An  old  acquaintance  of  the  President  visited  him  in 
Washington.  Lincoln  desired  to  give  him  a  place. 
*  Thus  encouraged,  the  visitor,  who  was  an  honest  man, 
but  wholly  inexperienced  in  public  affairs  or  business, 
asked  for  a  high  office,  Superintendent  of  the  Mint. 
The  President  was  aghast,  and  said :  4  *  Good  gracious ! 
Why  didn't  he  ask  to  be  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and 
have  done  with  it?"  Afterwards,  he  said:  "Well, 

now,  I  never  thought  Mr. had  anything  more  than 

average  ability,  when  we  were  young  men  together. 
But,  then,  I  suppose  he  thought  the  same  thing  about 
me,  and — here  I  am!" 


PRESIDENTIAL   INCIDENTS.  167 

Lincoln  was  censured  for  appointing  one  that  had 
zealously  opposed  his  second  term. 

He  replied:  "Well,  I  suppose  Judge  E.,  having  been 
disappointed  before,  did  behave  pretty  ugly,  but  that 
wouldn't  make  him  any  less  fit  for  the  place;  and  I 
think  I  have  Scriptural  authority  for  appointing  him. 
You  remember  when  the  Lord  was  on  Mount  Sinai 
getting  out  a  commission  for  Aaron,  that  same  Aaron 
was  at  the  foot  of  the  mountain  making  a  false  god  for 
the  people  to  worship.  Yet  Aaron  got  his  commis 
sion,  you  know." 


Stories  of  the  War. 


THE   PRESIDENT   "MAKING  GENERALS." 

H.  C.  Whitney  wrote  in  1866:  "I  was  in  Washing 
ton  in  the  Indian  service  for  a  few  days  before  August, 
1 86 1,  and  I  merely  said  to  Lincoln,  one  day,  'Every 
thing  is  drifting  into  the  war,  and  I  guess  you  will 
have  to  put  me  in  the  army. '  The  President  looked 
up  from  his  work  and  said,  good-humoredly,  'I'm 
making  generals  now,  in  a  few  days  I  will  .be  making 
quartermasters,  and  then  I'll  fix  you.'  " 


HARDTACK  WANTED,  NOT  GENERALS. 

Secretary  Stanton  told  the  President  the  following 
that  greatly  amused  him,  as  he  was  especially  fond  of 
a  joke  at  the  expense  of  some  high  military  or  civil 
dignity. 

When  Stanton  was  making  a  trip  up  the  Broad 
river  in  North  Carolina,  in'  a  tub  boat,  a  Federal 
picket  yelled  out,  "What  have  you  got  on  board  of 
that  tug?" 

The  severe  and  dignified  answer  was,  "The  Secretary 
of  War  and  Major-General  Foster." 

Instantly  the  picket  roared  back,  "We've  got  Major- 
Generals  enough  up  here.  Why  don't  you  bring  us  up 
some  hardtack?" 

168 


STORIES   OF   THE   WAR.  169 

WHIPPED   AND  THEN   RAN. 

Three  or  four  days  after  the  battle  of  Bull  Run, 
some  gentlemen  who  had  been  on  the  field  called 
upon  him. 

He  inquired  very  minutely  regarding  all  the  cir 
cumstances  of  the  affair,  and  after  listening  with  the 
utmost  attention,  said,  with  a  touch  of  humor:  "So 
it  is  your  notion  that  we  whipped  the  rebels  and  then 
ran  away  from  them!" 


A  TOUCHING  SONG  INFLUENCES  LINCOLN  TO 
PARDON  A   REBEL   PRISONER. 

The  following  interesting  particulars  connected  with 
the  early  life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  are  from  the 
Virginia  (111.)  Enquirer,  of  date  of  March  i,  1879: 

"John  McNamer  was  buried  last  Sunday,  near 
Petersburg,  Menard  County.  A  long  while  ago  he 
was  Assessor  and  Treasurer  of  the  County  for  several 
successive  terms.  Mr.  McNamer  was  an  early  settler 
in  that  section,  and  before  the  town  of  Petersburg  was 
laid  out,  in  business  in  Old  Salem,  a  village  that 
existed  many  years  ago  two  miles  south  of  the  present 
site  of  Petersburg.  Abe  Lincoln  was  then  postmaster 
of  the  place  and  sold  whisky  to  its  inhabitants.  There 
are  old-timers  yet  living  in  Menard  who  bought  many 
a  jug  of  corn -juice  from  Old  Abe  when  he  lived  at 
vSalem.  It  was  here  that  Annie  Rutledge  dwelt,  and 
in  whose  grave  Lincoln  wrote  that  his  heart  was 
buried.  As  the  story  runs,  the  fair  and  gentle  Annie 
was  originally  John  McNamer's  sweetheart,  but  Abe 


lyo  STORIES   OF   THE   WAR. 

.took  a  'shine'  to  the  young  lady,  and  succeeded  in 
heading  off  McNamer  and  won  her  affections.  But 
Annie  Rutledge  died,  and  Lincoln  went  to  Springfield, 
where  he  some  time  afterwards  married. 

' '  It  is  related  that  during  the  war  a  lady  belonging 
to  a  prominent  Kentucky  family  visited  Washington  to 
beg  for  her  son's  pardon,  who  was  then  in  prison  under 
sentence  of  death  for  belonging  to  a  band  of  guerrillas 
who  had  committed  many  murders  and  outrages. 
With  the  mother  was  her  daughter,  a  beautiful  young 
lady,  who  was  an  accomplished  musician.  Mr.  Lincoln 
received  the  visitors  in  his  usual  kind  manner,  and  the 
mother  made  known  the  object  of  her  visit,  accompany 
ing  her  plea  with  tears  and  sobs  and  all  the  customary 
romantic  incidents. 

"There  were  probably  extenuating  circumstances  in 
favor  of  the  young  rebel  prisoner,  and  while  the 
President  seemed  to  be  deeply  pondering,  the  young 
lady  moved  to  a  piano  near  by  and  taking  a  seat 
commenced  to  sing  'Gentle  Annie,'  a  very  sweet  and 
pathetic  ballad  which,  before  the  war,  was  a  familiar 
song  in  almost  every  household  in  the  Union,  and  is 
not  yet  entirely  forgotten,  for  that  matter.  It  is  to 
be  presumed  that  the  young  lady  sang  the  song  with 
more  plaintiveness  and  effect  than  Old  Abe  had  ever 
heard  it  in  Springfield.  During  its  rendition,  he  arose 
from  his  seat,  crossed  the  room  to  a  window  in  the 
westward,  through  which  he  gazed  for  several  minutes 
with  a  'sad,  far-away  look,'  which  has  so  often  been 
noted  as  one  of  his  peculiarities.  His  memory,  no 
doubt,  went  back  to  the  days  of  his  humble  life  on 
the  Sangamon,  and  with  visions  of  Old  Salem  and  its 
rustic  people,  who  once  gathered  in  his  primitive  store, 


STORIES   OF   THE   WAR.  171 

came  a  picture  of  the  'Gentle  Annie'  of  his  youth, 
whose  ashes  had  rested  for  many  long  years  under 
the  wild  flowers  and  brambles  of  the  old  rural  bury- 
ing-ground,  but  whose  spirit  then,  perhaps,  guided 
him  to  the  side  of  mercy.  Be  that  as  it  may,  Mr. 
Lincoln  drew  a  large  red  silk  handkerchief  from  his 
coat-pocket,  with  which  he  wiped  his  face  vigorously. 
Then  he  turned,  advanced  quickly  to  his  desk,  wrote 
a  brief  note,  which  he  handed  to  the  lady,  and  informed 
her  that  it  was  the  pardon  she  sought.  The  scene  was 
no  doubt  touching  in  a  great  degree  and  proves  that  a 
nice  song,  well  sung,  has  often  a  powerful  influence  in 
recalling  tender  recollections.  It  proves,  also,  that 
Abraham  Lincoln  was  a  man  of  fine  feelings,  and  that, 
if  the  occurrence  was  a  put-up  job  on  the  lady's  part 
it  accomplished  the  purpose  all  the  same." 


RIGHTEOUS   INDIGNATION. 

A  cashiered  officer,  seeking  to  be  restored  through 
the  power  of  the  executive,  became  insolent,  because 
the  President,  who  believed  the  man  guilty,  would 
riot  accede  to  his  repeated  requests,  at  last  said,  "Well, 
Mr.  President,  I  see  you  are  fully  determined  not  to 
do  me  justice!" 

This  was  too  aggravating  even  for  Mr.  Lincoln; 
rising  he  suddenly  seized  the  disgraced  officer  by  the 
coat  collar,  and  marched  him  forcibly  to  the  door, 
saying  as  he  ejected  him  into  the  passage:  "Sir,  I 
give  you  fair  warning  never  to  show  your  face  in  this 
room  again.  I  can  bear  censure,  but  not  insult.  I 
never  wish  to  see  your  face  again." 


172  STORIES   OP   THE   WAR. 

LINCOLN'S  HIGH   COMPLIMENT  TO  THE  WOMEN 
OF  AMERICA. 

A  fair  for  the  benefit  of  the  soldiers,  held  at  the 
Patent  Office,  Washington,  called  out  Mr.  Lincoln  as 
an  interested  visitor;  and  he  was  not  permitted  to 
retire  without  giving  a  word  to  those  in  attendance. 
"In  this  extraordinary  war,"  said  he,  "extraordinary 
developments  have  manifested  themselves,  such  as 
have  not  been  seen  in  former  wars ;  and  among  these 
manifestations  nothing  has  been  more  remarkable  than 
these  fairs  for  the  relief  of  suffering  soldiers  and  their 
families.  And  the  chief  agent  in  these  fairs  are  the 
women  of  America.  I  am  not  accustomed  to  the  use 
of  language  of  eulogy;  I  have  never  studied  the  art  of 
paying  compliments  to  women;  but  I  must  say  that 
if  all  that  has  been  said  by  orators  and  poets  since  the 
creation  of  the  world,  in  praise  of  women,  were  applied 
to  the  women  of  America,  it  would  not  do  them  justice 
for  their  conduct  during  the  war.  I  will  close  by 
saying,  God  bless  the  women  of  America!" 


LINCOLN'S   PLAN   OF  WAR. 

The  President  explained  to  Mr.  Whitney  the  theory 
of  the  Rebellion  by  the  aid  of  the  maps  before  him. 

Running  his  long  fore-finger  down  the  map,  he 
stopped  at  Virginia.  "We  must  drive  them  away  from 
here"  (Manassas  Gap),  he  said,  "  and  clear  them  out 
of  this  part  of  the  State  so  that  they  cannot  threaten 
us  here  (Washington)  and  get  into  Maryland. 

"We  must  keep  up  a  good  and  thorough  blockade  of 
their  ports.  We  must  march  an  army  into  East 


STORIES   OF   THE   WAR.  173 

Tennessee  and  liberate  the  Union  sentiment  there. 
Finally  we  must  rely  on  the  people  growing  tired  and 
saying  to  their  leaders,  'We  have  had  enough  of  this 
thing,  we  will  bear  it  no  longer.'  '  Such  was  Mr. 
Lincoln's  plan  for  heading  off  the  Rebellion  in  the 
summer  of  1861.  How  it  enlarged  as  the  war  pro 
gressed,  from  a  call  for  seventy  thousand  volunteers  to 
one  for  five  hundred  thousand  men  and  five  hundred 
millions  of  dollars  is  a  matter  of  well-known  history. 


THE    PRESIDENT'S    OBEYING   ORDERS. 

The  President  was  at  the  battle  of  Fort  Stevens,  and 
standing  in  a  very  exposed  position,  he  apparently  had 
been  recognized  by  the  enemy.  A  young  colonel  of 
artillery,  who  appeared  to  be  the  officer  of  the  day, 
finally  decided  to  insist  on  the  President  removing  to 
a  safer  location. 

He  walked  to  where  the  President  was  looking  over 
the  parapet,  and  said,  "Mr.  President,  you  are  standing 
within  range  of  four  hundred  rebel  rifles.  Please  come 
down  to  a  safer  place.  If  you  do  not,  it  will  be  my 
duty  to  call  a  file  of  men,  and  make  you. " 

"And  you  would  do  quite  right,  my  boy!"  said  the 
President,  coming  down  at  once.  "You  are  in  com 
mand  of  the  fort.  I  should  be  the  last  man  to  set  an 
example  of  disobedience!" 


THE   MILLIONAIRES  WHO   WANTED  A  GUNBOAT. 

A  delegation  of  New  York  millionaires  in  1862 
waited  on  President  Lincoln  to  request  that  he  furnish 
a  gunboat  for  the  protection  of  New  York  harbor. 


174  STORIES   OF   THE   WAR. 

Mr.  Lincoln,  after  listening  patiently,  said,  "Gentle 
men  :  The  credit  of  the  Government  is  at  a  very  low 
ebb;  greenbacks  are  not  worth  more  than  forty  or  fifty 
cents  on  the  dollar;  it  is  impossible  for  me,  in  the 
present  condition  of  things,  to  furnish  you  a  gunboat, 
and,  in  this  condition  of  things,  if  I  was  worth  half  as 
much  as  you,  gentlemen,  are  represented  to  be,  and 
as  badly  frightened  as  you  seem  to  be,  I  would  build 
a  gunboat  and  give  it  to  the  Government. ' ' 

They  went  away,  sadder  but  wiser  men. 


THE  PRESIDENT  REFUSES  TO   SIGN  TWENTY-FOUR 
DEATH   WARRANTS. 

A  personal  friend  of  President  Lincoln  says:  "I 
called  on  him  one  day  in  the  early  part  of  the  war. 
He  had  just  written  a  pardon  for  a  young  man  who  had 
been  sentenced  to  be  shot,  for  sleeping  at  his  post,  as 
a  sentinel.  He  remarked  as  he  read  it  to  me: 

'  'I  could  not  think  of  going  into  eternity  with  the 
blood  of  the  poor  young  man  on  my  skirts. '  Then  he 
added:  'It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  a  boy,  raised 
on  a  farm,  probably  in  the  habit  of  going  to  bed  at 
dark,  should,  when  required  to  watch,  fall  asleep ;  and 
I  cannot  consent  to  shoot  him  for  such  an  act.'  " 

This  story,  with  its  moral,  is  made  complete  by  Rev. 
Newman  Hall,  of  London,  who,  in  a  sermon  preached 
after  and  upon  Mr.  Lincoln's  death,  says  that  the  dead 
body  of  this  youth  was  found  among  the  slain  on  the 
field  of  Fredericksburg,  wearing  next  his  heart  a 
photograph  of  his  preserver,  beneath  which  the  grate 
ful  fellow  had  written,  "God  bless  President  Lincoln!" 

From  the  same  sermon  another  anecdote  is  gleaned, 


STORIES   OF   THE    WAR.  175 

of  a  similar  character,  which  is  evidently  authentic. 
An  officer  of  the  army,  in  conversation  with  the 
preacher,  said: 

"The  first  week  of  my  command  there  were  twenty- 
four  deserters  sentenced  by  court  martial  to  be  shot, 
and  the  warrants  for  their  execution  were  sent  to  the 
President  to  be  signed.  He  refused.  I  went  to 
Washington  and  had  an  interview.  I  said: 

"  'Mr.  President,  unless  these  men  are  made  an 
example  of,  the  army  itself  is  in  danger.  Mercy  to  the 
few  is  cruelty  to  the  many. ' 

"He  replied:  'Mr.  General,  there  are  already  too 
many  weeping  widows  in  the  United  States.  For 
God's  sake,  don't  ask  me  to  add  to  the  number,  for  I 
won't  do  it.1  " 


AMONG   THE   WOUNDED. 

As  one  stretcher  was  passing  Mr.  Lincoln,  he  heard 
the  voice  of  a  lad  calling  to  his  mother  in  agonizing 
tones.  His  great  heart  filled.  He  forgot  the  crisis 
of  the  hour.  Stopping  the  carriers  he  knelt,  and  bend 
ing  over  him  asked:  "What  can  I  do  for  you,  my 
poor  child?" 

4  *  Oh,  you  will  do  nothing  for  me, ' '  he  replied.  * '  You 
are  a  Yankee.  I  cannot  hope  that  my  message  to  my 
mother  will  ever  reach  her."  Mr.  Lincoln  in  tears, 
his  voice  full  of  tenderest  love,  convinced  the  boy  of 
his  sincerity,  and  he  gave  his  good-bye  words  without 
reserve. 

The  President  directed  them  copied,  and  ordered 
that  they  be  sent  that  night,  with  a  flag  of  truce,  into 
the  enemy's  lines. 


176  STORIES   OF   THE   WAR. 

THE   LITTLE   DRUMMER   BOY. 

The  President  noticed  a  small,  pale,  delicate  looking 
boy,  about  thirteen  years  old,  among  the  number  in 
the  ante-chamber.  The  President  saw  him  standing 
there,  looking  so  feeble  and  faint,  and  said:  "Come 
here,  my  boy,  and  tell  me  what  you  want."  The  boy 
advanced,  placed  his  hand  on  the  arm  of  the  President's 
chair,  and  with  a  bowed  head  and  timid  accents  said : 
"Mr.  President,  I  have  been  a  drummer  boy  in  a 
regiment  for  two  years,  and  my  colonel  got  angry  with 
me  and  turned  me  off.  I  was  taken  sick  and  have 
been  a  long  time  in  the  hospital."  The  President 
discovered  that  the  boy  had  no  home,  no  father — he 
had  died  in  the  army — no  mother.  "I  have  no  father, 
no  mother,  no  brothers,  no  sisters,  and,"  bursting 
into  tears,  "no  friends — nobody  cares  for  me."  Mr. 
Lincoln's  eyes  filled  with  tears,  and  the  boy's  heart 
was  soon  made  glad  by  a  request  to  certain  officials 
"to  care  for  this  poor  boy." 


A   CASE  WHERE  LINCOLN  THOUGHT  SHOOTING 
WOULD   DO   NO   GOOD. 

The  Hon.  Mr.  Kellogg,  representative  from  Essex 
County,  N.  Y.,  received  a  dispatch  one  evening  from 
the  army  to  the  effect  that  a  young  townsman  who  had 
been  induced  to  enlist  through  his  instrumentality  had, 
for  a  serious  demeanor,  been  convicted  by  a  court- 
martial  and  was  to  be  shot  the  next  day.  Greatly 
agitated,  Mr.  Kellogg  went  to  the  Secretary  of  War 
and  urged,  in  the  strongest  manner,  a  reprieve. 
Stanton  was  inexorable. 


STORIES   OF   THE   WAR.  177 

"Too  many  cases  of  this  kind  had  been  let  off,"  said. 
he,  "and  it  was  time  an  example  was  made." 

Exhausting  his  eloquence  in  vain,  Mr.  Kellogg  said : 

44 Well,  Mr.  Secretary,  the  boy  is  not  going  to  be 
shot,  of  that  I  give  you  fair  warning!" 

Leaving  the  War  Department,  he  went  directly  to 
the  White  House,  although  the  hour  was  late.  The 
sentinel  on  duty  told  him  that  special  orders  had  been 
given  to  admit  no  one  whatever  that  night. 

After  a  long  parley,  by  pledging  himself  to  assume 
the  responsibility  of  the  act,  the  Congressman  passed 
in.  Mr.  Lincoln  had  retired,  but  indifferent  to 
etiquette  or  ceremony,  Judge  Kellogg  pressed  his  way 
through  all  obstacles  to  his  sleeping  apartment.  In 
an  excited  manner  he  stated  that  the  dispatch  announc 
ing  the  hour  of  execution  had  just  reached  him. 

"This  man  must  not  be  shot,  Mr.  President,"  said 
he.  <4I  can't  help  what  he  may  have  done.  Why,  he 
is  an  old  neighbor  of  mine;  I  can't  allow  him  to  be 
shot!" 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  remained  in  bed,  quietly  listening 
to  the  protestations  of  his  old  friend  (they  were  in 
Congress  together).  He  at  length  said: 

"Well,  I  don't  believe  shooting  will  do  him  any 
good.  Give  me  that  pen." 

And  so  saying,  "red  tape"  was  unceremoniously  cut, 
and  another  poor  fellow's  life  was  indefinitely  extended. 


NEW  INSTRUCTIONS  TO   GENERALS. 

44  War  Department,  Washington,  July  22,  '62. 
4 'First  ordered  that    military    commanders    within 
the    States    of    Virginia,    South     Carolina,    Georgia, 


178  STORIES   OF   THE   WAR. 

Florida,  Alabama,  Mississippi,  Louisiana,  Texas  and 
Arkansas,  in  an  orderly  manner,  seize  and  use  any 
property,  real  or  personal,  which  may  be  necessary  or 
convenient  for  their  several  commands,  for  supplies, 
or  for  other  military  purposes ;  and  that  while  property 
may  be  all  stored  for  proper  military  objects,  none 
shall  be  destroyed  in  wantonness  nor  malice. 

' '  Second :  That  military  and  naval  commanders  shall 
employ  as  laborers  within  and  from  said  states,  so 
many  persons  of  African  descent  as  can  be  advanta 
geously  used  for  military  or  naval  purposes,  giving 
them  reasonable  wages  for  their  labor. 

44 Third:  That  as  to  both  property  and  persons  of 
African  descent,  accounts  shall  be  kept  sufficiently 
accurate  and  in  detail  to  show  quantities  and  amounts, 
and  from  whom  both  property  and  such  persons  shall 
have  come,  as  a  basis  upon  which  compensation  can 
be  made  in  proper  cases ;  and  the  several  departments 
of  this  Government  shall  attend  to  and  perform  their 
appropriate  parts  towards  the  execution  of  these 
orders.  By  order  of  the  President. ' ' 


LINCOLN   REFUSES  PARDON  TO  A 
SLAVE-STEALER. 

Hon.  John  B.  Alley,  of  Linn,  Massachusetts,  was 
made  the  bearer  to  the  President  of  a  petition  for 
pardon,  by  a  person  confined  in  the  Newburyport  jail 
for  being  engaged  in  the  slave  trade.  He  had  been 
sentenced  to  five  years'  imprisonment,  and  the  pay 
ment  of  a  fine  of  one  thousand  dollars.  The  petition 
was  accompanied  by  a  letter  to  Mr.  Alley,  in  which  the 
prisoner  acknowledged  his  guilt  and  the  justice  of  his 


STORIES   OF   THE  WAR.  179 

sentence.  He  was  very  penitent — at  least  on  paper — 
and  had  received  the  full  measure  of  his  punishment, 
so  far  as  it  related  to  the  term  of  his  imprisonment, 
but  he  was  still  held  because  he  could  not  pay  his  fine. 
Mr.  Alley  read  the  letter  to  the  President,  who  was 
much  moved  by  its  pathetic  appeals ;  and  when  he  had 
himself  read  the  petition  he  looked  up  and  said:  "My 
friend,  that  is  a  very  touching  appeal  to  our  feelings. 
You  know  my  weakness  is  to  be,  if  possible,  too 
easily  moved  by  appeals  for  mercy,  and  if  this  man 
were  guilty  of  the  foulest  murder  that  the  arm  of  man 
could  perpetrate  I  might  forgive  him  on  such  an 
appeal ;  but  the  man  who  could  go  to  Africa,  and  rob 
her  of  her  children,  and  sell  them  into  interminable 
bondage,  with  no  other  motive  than  that  which  is 
furnished  by  dollars  and  cents,  is  so  much  worse  than 
the  most  depraved  murderer,  that  he  can  never  receive 
pardon  at  my  hands.  No!  he  may  rot  in  jail  before 
he  shall  have  liberty  by  any  act  of  mine."  A  sudden 
crime,  committed  under  strong  temptation,  was  venial 
in  his  eyes,  on  evidence  of  repentance ;  but  the  calculat 
ing,  mercenary  crime  of  man-stealing  and  man-selling, 
with  all  the  cruelties  that  are  essential  accompaniments 
to  the  business,  could  win  from  him,  as  an  officer  of 
the  people,  no  pardon. 


LINCOLN'S  INFLUENCE  WITH  THE 
ADMINISTRATION. 

Many  smiles  have  been  caused  by  the  quaint  remark 
of  the  President,  "My  dear  sir,  I  have  not  much  influ 
ence  with  the  administration . ' ' 

Mr.  Stanton,  Secretary  of  War,  once  replied  to  an 


i8o  STORIES  OF   THE   WAR. 

order  from  the  President,  to  give  a  colonel  a  com 
mission  in  place  of  the  resigning  brigadier : 

"I  shan't  do  it,  sir.  I  shan't  do  it!  It  isn't  the  way 
to  do  it,  sir,  and  I  shan't  do  it.  I  don't  propose  to 
argue  the  question  with  you,  sir." 

A  few  days  after  the  friend  of  the  applicant  that 
presented  the  order  to  Stanton  called  upon  the  Presi 
dent  and  related  his  reception.  "A  look  of  vexation 
came  over  the  face  of,  the  President,  and  he  seemed 
unwilling  to  talk  of  it,  and  desired  me  to  see  Him 
another  day.  I  did  so,  when  he  gave  me  a  positive 
order  for  the  promotion.  I  told  him  I  would  not  speak 
to  Stanton  again  until  he  apologized.  'Oh,'  said  the 
President,  'Stanton  has  gone  to  Fortress  Monroe,  and 
Dana  is  acting.  He  will  attend  to  it  for  you. '  This 
he  said  with  a  manner  of  relief,  as  if  it  was  a  piece  of 
good  luck  to  find  a  man  there  who  would  obey  his  orders. 
The  nomination  was  sent  to  the  Senate  and  confirmed. ' ' 

Lincoln  was  the  actual  head  of  the  administration, 
and  whenever  he  chose  to  do  so  he  controlled  Stanton 
as  well  as  the  other  Cabinet  ministers. 

One  instance  will  suffice : 

Stanton  on  one  occasion  said:  "Now,  Mr.  President, 
those  are  the  facts  and  you  must  see  that  your  order 
cannot  be  executed." 

Lincoln  replied  in  a  somewhat  positive  tone:  "Mr. 
Secretary,  I  reckon  you'll  have  to  execute  the  order." 
Stanton  replied  with  vigor:  "Mr.  President,  I  cannot 
do  it.  This  order  is  an  improper  one,  and  I  cannot 
execute  it. ' ' 

Lincoln  fixed  his  eyes  upon  Stanton,  and  in  a  firm 
voice  and  accent  that  clearly  showed  his  determination, 
he  said:  "Mr.  Secretary,  it  will  have  to  be  done." 


STORIES   OF   THE   WAR.  181 

LINCOLN   DEFENDS   HIS   USE  OF  THE  WORD 

"SUGAR-COATED"   IN  A  PUBLIC 

DOCUMENT. 

Mr.  Defrees,  the  Government  printer,  states  that, 
when  one  of  the  President's  messages  was  being 
printed,  he  was  a  good  deal  disturbed  by  the  use  of  the 
term  * 'sugar-coated,"  and  finally  went  to  Mr.  Lincoln 
about  it.  Their  relations  to  each  other  being  of  the 
most  intimate  character,  he  told  the  President  frankly 
that  he  ought  to  remember  that  a  message  to  Congress 
was  a  different  affair  from  a  speech  at  a  mass  meeting 
in  Illinois;  that  the  messages  became  a  part  of  history, 
and  should  be  written  accordingly. 

"What  is  the  matter  now?"  inquired  the  President. 

"Why,"  said  Mr.  Defrees,  "you  have  used  an 
undignified  expression  in  the  message";  and  then, 
reading  the  paragraph  aloud,  he  added,  "I  would  alter 
the  structure  of  that  if  I  were  you." 

"Defrees,"  replied  Mr.  Lincoln,  "that  word  expresses 
exactly  my  idea,  and  I  am  not  going  to  change  it. 
The  time  will  come  in  this  country,  when  people  won't 
know  exactly  what  'sugar-coated'  means." 

On  a  subsequent  occasion,  Mr.  Defrees  states  that  a 
certain  sentence  of  another  message  was  very  awk 
wardly  constructed.  Calling  the  President's  attention 
to  it  in  the  proof  copy,  the  latter  acknowledged  the 
force  of  the  objection  raised,  and  said,  "Go  home, 
Defrees,  and  see  if  you  can  better  it. ' ' 

The  next  day  Mr.  Defrees  took  him  his  amendment. 
Mr.  Lincoln  met  him  by  saying : 

"Seward  found  the  same  fault  that  you  did,  and  he 
has  been  rewriting  the  paragraph  also."  Then,  read 
ing  Mr.  Defrees'  version,  he  said,  "I  believe  you  have 


i8*  STORIES   OF   THE   WAR. 

beaten  Seward;  but,  'I  jings,'  I  think  I  can  beat  you 
both. ' '  Then,  taking  up  his  pen,  he  wrote  the  sentence 
as  it  was  finally  printed. 


BAILING   OUT  THE   POTOMAC   RIVER. 

An  obscure  officer  persisted  in  telling  and  re-telling 
his  troubles  to  the  President  on  a  summer  afternoon 
when  the  President  was  tired  and  careworn.  After 
listening  patiently,  he  finally  turned  upon  the  man, 
and  looking  wearily  out  upon  the  broad  Potomac  in 
the  distance,  said  in  a  peremptory  tone  that  ended  the 
interview : 

"Now,  my  man,  go  away,  go  away.  I  cannot 
meddle  in  your  case.  I  could  as  easily  bail  out  the 
Potomac  River  with  a  teaspoon  as  attend  to  all  the 
details  of  the  army. ' ' 

And  thus  one  after  another  had  to  be  disposed  of, 

day  after  day.  At  another  time,  Governor went 

to  the  office  of  the  War  Department  in  a  towering 
rage.  I  said  to  the  President : 

44I  suppose  you  found  it  necessary  to  make  large 
concessions  to  him,  as  he  returned  from  you  perfectly 
satisfied."  "Oh,  no,"  he  replied,  "I  did  not  concede 
anything.  You  have  heard  how  that  Illinois  farmer 
got  rid  of  a  big  log  that  was  too  big  to  haul  out,  too 
knotty  to  split,  and  too  wet  and  soggy  to  burn. 
*Well,  now,'  said  he,  in  response  to  the  inquiries  of  his 
neighbors  one  Sunday,  as  to  how  he  got  rid  of  it; 
'Well,  now,  boys,  if  you  won't  divulge  the  secret,  I'll 
tell  you  how  I  got  rid  of  it — I  ploughed  around  it. ' 
Now,"  said  Lincoln,  "don't  tell  anybody,  but  that's 


STORIES   OF   THE    WAR.  183 

the   way   I    got  rid  of    Governor .      I    ploughed 

around  him,  but  it  took  me  three  mortal  hours  to  do 
it,  and  I  was  afraid  every  minute  he'd  see  what  I 
was  at. ' ' 


THE   HON.    FREDERICK   DOUGLASS   TELLS   OF  AN 
INTERVIEW    WITH   LINCOLN. 

The  well-known  Frederick  Douglass,  in  the  North 
Western  Advocate,  says: 

"I  saw  and  conversed  with  this  great  man  for  the 
first  time  in  the  darkest  hours  of  the  military  situation 
when  the  armies  of  the  rebellion  seemed  more  con 
fident,  defiant  and  aggressive  than  ever. 

"I  had  never  before  had  an  interview  with  a  Presi 
dent  of  the  United  States,  and  though  I  felt  that  I  had 
something  important  to  say,  considering  his  exalted 
position  and  my  lowly  origin  and  the  people  whose 
cause  I  came  to  plead,  I  approached  him  with  .trep 
idation  as  to  how  this  great  man  might  receive  me; 
but  one  word  and  look  from  him  banished  all  my  fears 
and  set  me  perfectly  at  ease.  I  have  often  said  since 
that  meeting  that  it  was  much  easier  to  see  and  con 
verse  with  a  great  man  than  it  was  with  a  small  man. 

"On  that  occasion  he  said: 

44  'Douglass,  you  need  not  tell  me  who  you  are,  Mr. 
Seward  has  told  me  all  about  you. ' 

"I  then  saw  that  there  was  no  reason  to  tell  him  my 
personal  story,  however  interesting  it  might  be  to 
myself  or  others,  so  I  told  him  at  once  the  object  of 
my  visit.  It  was  to  get  some  expression  from  him 
upon  three  points : 

"i.   Equal  pay  to  colored  soldiers. 


i84  STORIES   OF   THE   WAR. 

"2.  Their  promotion  when  they  had  earned  it  on  the 
battle-field. 

"3.  Should  they  be  taken  prisoners  and  enslaved  or 
hanged,  as  Jefferson  Davis  had  threatened,  an  equal 
number  of  Confederate  prisoners  should  be  executed 
within  our  lines. 

"A  declaration  to  that  effect  I  thought  would  pre 
vent  the  execution  of  the  rebel  threat.  To  all  but  the 
last  President  Lincoln  assented.  He  argued,  however, 
that  neither  equal  pay  nor  promotion  could  be  granted 
at  once.  He  said  that  in  view  of  existing  prejudices 
it  was  a  great  step  forward  to  employ  colored  troops 
at  all ;  that  it  was  necessary  to  avoid  everything  that 
would  offend  this  prejudice  and  increase  opposition  to 
the  measure. 

"He  detailed  the  steps  by  which  white  soldiers  were 
reconciled  to  the  employment  of  colored  troops;  how 
these  were  first  employed  as  laborers;  how  it  was 
thought  they  should  not  be  armed  or  uniformed  like 
white  soldiers ;  how  they  should  only  be  made  to  wear 
a  peculiar  uniform;  how  they  should  be  employed  to 
hold  forts  and  arsenals  in  sickly  locations,  and  not 
enter  the  field  like  other  soldiers. 

"With  all  these  restrictions  and  limitations  he  easily 
made  me  see  that  much  would  be  gained  when  the 
colored  man  loomed  before  the  country  as  a  full- 
fledged  United  States  soldier  to  fight,  flourish  or  fall  in 
defense  of  the  united  republic.  The  great  soul  of 
Lincoln  halted  only  when  he  came  to  the  point  of 
retaliation. 

"The  thought  of  hanging  men  in  cold  blood,  even 
though  the  rebels  should  murder  a  few  of  the  colored 
prisoners,  was  a  horror  from  which  he  shrank. 


STORIES   OF   THE   WAR.  185 

"  'Oh,  Douglass!  I  cannot  do  that.  If  I  could  get  hold 
of  the  actual  murderers  of  colored  prisoners,  I  would 
retaliate ;  but  to  hang  those  who  have  no  hand  in  such 
murders,  I  cannot/ 

"The  contemplation  of  such  an  act  brought  to  his 
countenance  such  an  expression  of  sadness  and  pity 
that  it  made  it  hard  for  me  to  press  my  point,  though 
I  told  him  it  would  tend  to  save  rather  than  destroy 
life.  He,  however,  insisted  that  this  work  of  blood, 
once  begun,  would  be  hard  to  stop — that  such  violence 
would  beget  violence.  He  argued  more  like  a  disciple 
of  Christ  than  a  commander-in-chief  of  the  army  and 
navy  of  a  warlike  nation  already  involved  in  a  terrible 
war. 

"How  sad  and  strange  the  fate  of  this  great  and 
good  man,  the  savior  of  his  country,  the  embodiment 
of  human  charity,  whose  heart,  though  strong,  was  as 
tender  as  a  heart  of  childhood;  who  always  tempered 
justice  with  mercy;  who  sought  to  supplant  the  sword 
with  counsel  of  reason,  to  suppress  passion  by  kindness 
and  moderation ;  who  had  a  sigh  for  every  human 
grief  and  a  tear  for  every  human  woe,  should  at  last 
perish  by  the  hand  of  a  desperate  assassin,  against 
whom  no  thought  of  malice  had  ever  entered  his  heart ! ' ' 


LINCOLN  AND   TAD. 

Amid  the  cheering  of  the  men  at  Chancellorsville, 
one  of  the  volunteers  lustily  called  out  to  the  Presi 
dent,  "Send  along  more  greenbacks."  Lincoln  was 
greatly  amused  by  the  incident  and  explained  to  Tad 
that  thd  men  had  not  been  paid.  Tad  thought  for  a 


i86  STORIES   OF   THE   WAR. 

moment,  then  said  with  great  innocence,  "Why  didn't 
Governor  Chase  print  some  more  greenbacks?" 


TAD  THE   COMMISSIONED   OFFICER. 

Tad,  having  been  sportively  commissioned  a  lieuten 
ant  in  the  United  States  Army  by  Secretary  Stan  ton, 
procured  several  muskets  and  drilled  the  men-servants 
of  the  house  in  the  manual  of  arms  without  attracting 
the  attention  of  his  father.  And  one  night,  to  his  con 
sternation,  he  put  them  all  on  duty,  and  relieved  the 
regular  sentries,  who,  seeing  the  lad  in  full  uniform, 
or  perhaps  appreciating  the  joke,  gladly  went  to  their 
quarters.  His  brother  objected;  but  Tad  insisted 
upon  his  rights  as  an  officer.  The  President  laughed 
but  declined  to  interfere,  but  when  the  lad  had  lost 
his  little  authority  in  his  boyish  sleep,  the  Commander- 
in-Chief  of  the  Army  and  Navy  of  the  United  States 
went  down  and  personally  discharged  the  sentries  his 
son  had  put  on  the  post. 


MR.    LINCOLN  AS   HISTORIAN. 

Jefferson  Davis,  it  appears,  insisted  on  being  recog 
nized  as  commander  or  President  in  the  regular  nego 
tiation  with  the  government.  This  Mr.  Lincoln  would 
not  consent  to. 

Mr.  Hunter  hereupon  referred  to  the  correspondence 
between  King  Charles  the  First  and  his  Parliament  as 
a  precedent  for  a  negotiation  between  a  constitutional 
ruler  and  rebels.  Mr.  Lincoln's  face  then  wore  that 
indescribable  expression  which  generally  preceded  his 
hardest  hits,  and  he  remarked:  "Upon  questions  of 
history,  I  must  refer  you  to  Mr.  Seward,  for  he  is 


STORIES   OF   THE   WAR.  187 

posted  in  such  things,  and  I  don't  profess  to  be;  but 
my  only  distinct  recollection  of  the  matter  is,  that 
Charles  lost  his  head." 


THE   PRESIDENT  AND  "FIGHTING  JOE." 

General  Joe  Hooker,  the  fourth  commander  of  the 
noble  but  unfortunate  Army  of  the  Potomac,  was 
appointed  to  that  position  by  President  Lincoln,  in 
January,  1863.  General  Scott,  for  some  reason,  dis 
liked  Hooker  and  would  not  appoint  him.  Hooker, 
after  some  months  of  discouraging  waiting,  decided  to 
return  to  California,  and  called  to  pay  his  respects  to 
Mr.  Lincoln.  He  was  introduced  as  Captain  Hooker, 
and  to  the  surprise  of  the  President  began  the  follow 
ing  speech:  "Mr.  President,  my  friend  makes  a 
mistake.  I  am  not  Captain  Hooker,  but  was  once 
Lieutenant-Colonel  Hooker  of  the  regular  army.  I 
was  lately  a  farmer  in  California,  but  since  the  rebellion 
broke  out  I  have  been  trying  to  get  into  service,  but 
I  find  I  am  not  wanted. 

"I  am  about  to  return  home;  but  before  going,  I  was 
anxious  to  pay  my  respects  to  you,  and  express  my 
wishes  for  your  personal  welfare  and  success  in 
quelling  this  rebellion.  And  I  want  to  say  to  you  a 
word  more. 

4 'I  was  at  Bull  Run  the  other  day,  Mr.  President, 
and  it  is  no  vanity  in  me  to  say,  I  am  a  d — d  sight 
better  general  than  you  had  on  the  field. ' ' 

This  was  said,  not  in  the  tone  of  a  braggart,  but  of 
a  man  who  knew  what  he  was  talking  about.  Hooker 
did  not  return  to  California,  but  in  a  few  weeks 
Captain  Hooker  was  Brigadier-General  Hooker,  and 


i88  STORIES   OF   THE   WAR. 

"Fighting   Joe"    was  regarded   as   one   of  the  most 
vigorous  and  efficient  Generals  of  the  Union  Army. 


MR.    LINCOLN'S  MILITARY  TALENT. 

To  Hooker  on  the  5th  of  June,  1863:  He  warns 
Hooker  not  to  run  any  risk  of  being  entangled  on  the 
Rappahannock  "like  an  ox  jumped  half  over  a  fence 
and  liable  to  be  torn  by  dogs,  front  and  rear,  without 
a  fair  chance  to  give  one  way  or  kick  the  other. ' '  On 
the  loth  he  warns  Hooker  not  to  go  south  of  the 
Rappahannock  upon  Lee's  moving  north  of  it.  "I 
think  Lee's  army  and  not  Richmond  is  your  true 
objective  power.  If  he  comes  toward  the  upper 
Potomac,  follow  on  his  flank,  and  on  the  inside  track, 
shortening  your  lines  while  he  lengthens  his.  Fight 
him,  too,  when  opportunity  offers.  If  he  stay  where 
he  is,  fret  him,  and  fret  him."  On  the  i4th  again  he 
says :  "So  far  as  we  can  make  out  here,  the  enemy 
have  Milroy  surrounded  at  Winchester,  and  Tyler  at 
Martinsburg.  If  they  could  hold  out  for  a  few  days, 
could  you  help  them?  If  the  head  of  Lee's  army  is  at 
Martinsburg,  and  the  tail  of  it  on  the  flank  road 
between  Fredericksburg  and  Chancellors ville,  the 
animal  must  be  very  slim  somewhere ;  could  you  not 
break  him?" 

WHY    MR.    LINCOLN    HESITATED    BEFORE    SIGNING 
THE   EMANCIPATION    PROCLAMATION. 

The  roll  containing  the  Emancipation  Proclamation 
was  taken  to  Mr.  Lincoln  at  noon  on  the  first  day  of 
January,  1863,  by  Secretary  Seward  and  his  son 
Frederick.  As  it  lay  unrolled  before  him,  Mr.  Lincoln 


STORIES   OF   THE   WAR.  189 

took  a  pen,  dipped  it  in  the  ink,  moved  his  hand  to  the 
place  for  the  signature,  held  it  a  moment,  then 
removed  his  hand  and  dropped  the  pen.  After  a  little 
hesitation  he  again  took  up  the  pen  and  went  through 
the  same  movement  as  before.  Mr.  Lincoln  then 
turned  to  Mr.  Seward,  and  said : 

*'I  have  been  shaking  hands  since  nine  o'clock  this 
morning,  and  my  right  arm  is  almost  paralyzed.  If 
my  name  ever  goes  into  history  it  will  be  for  this  act, 
and  my  whole  soul  is  in  it.  If  my  hand  trembles 
when  I  sign  the  Proclamation,  all  who  examine  the 
document  hereafter  will  say,  'He  hesitated.'  " 

He  then  turned  to  the  table,  took  up  the  pen  again, 
and  slowly,  firmly  wrote  "Abraham  Lincoln,"  with 
which  the  whole  world  is  now  familiar.  He  then 
looked  up,  smiled,  and  said,  "That  will  do!" 


<l MAKING  A   FIZZLE  ANYHOW." 

The  President,  in  company  with  General  Grant,  was 
inspecting  the  Dutch  Gap  Canal  at  City  Point. 

His  opinion  of  the  success  of  the  enterprise  he  made 
known  to  General  Grant  in  his  usual  manner. 

"Grant,  do  you  know  what  this  reminds  me  of?  Out 

in  Springfield,  111.,  there  was  a  blacksmith  named . 

One  day,  not  having  much  to  do,  he  took  a  piece  of 
soft  iron,  and  attempted  to  weld  it  into  an  agricultural 
implement,  but  discovered  that  the  iron  would  not 
hold  out;  then  he  concluded  it  would  make  a  claw 
hammer;  but  having  too  much  iron  attempted  to  make 
an  ax,  but  decided  after  working  a  while  that  there 
was  not  enough  iron  left.  Finally,  becoming  dis- 


i9o  STORIES   OF   THE   WAR. 

gusted,  lie  filled  the  forge  full  of  coal  and  brought  the 
iron  to  a  white  heat ;  then  with  his  tongs  he  lifted  it 
from  the  bed  of  coals,  and  thrusting  it  into  a  tub  of 
water  near  by,  exclaimed  with  an  oath,  'Well,  if  I 
can't  make  anything  else  of  you,  I  will  make  a  fizzle 
anyhow.'  I  was  afraid  that  was  about  what  we  had 
done  with  the  Dutch  Gap  Canal." 


A    STORY    ILLUSTRATING    LINCOLN'S    IMPATIENCE 
AT  McCLELLAN'S  SLOW   MOVEMENTS. 

4 'On  a  certain  occasion  the  President  said  to  a  friend 
that  he  was  in  great  distress ;  he  had  been  to  General 
McClellan's  house  and  the  General  did  not  ask  to  see 
him ;  and  as  he  must  talk  to  somebody  he  had  sent 
for  General  Franklin  and  myself,  to  obtain  our  opinions 
as  to  the  possibility  of  soon  commencing  operations 
with  the  Army  of  the  Potomac.  To  use  his  own 
expression,  if  something  was  not  done  soon  the  bottom 
would  fall  out  of  the  whole  affair;  and  if  General 
McClellan  did  not  want  to  use  the  army,  he  would 
like  to  borrow  it,  provided  he  could  see  how  it  could 
be  made  to  do  something." 


LINCOLN'S  SUMMING   UP  OF  McCLELLAN. 

"If  General  McClellan  does  not  want  to  use  the 
army  for  some  days,  I  should  like  to  borrow  it  and  see 
if  it  cannot  be  made  to  do  something." 

Mr.  Lincoln  said,  McClellan's  tardiness  reminded 
him  of  a  man  who  knew  a  few  law  phrases  but  whose 
lawyer  lacked  aggressiveness.  The  man  finally  lost 


STORIES   OF   THE   WAR.  191 

all  patience  and  springing  to  his  feet  said:  "Why 
don't  you  go  at  him  with  a  fifa,  a  demurrer,  a  capias, 
a  surrebutter,  or  a  ne  exeat,  or  something;  or  a 
nundam  pactum  or  a  non  est?" 

Lincoln  at  another  time  said:  "General  McClellan  is 
a  pleasant  and  scholarly  gentleman. 

"He  is  an  admirable  engineer,  but  he  seems  to  have 
a  special  talent  for  a  stationary  engine. " 


ADVISES  AN   ANGRY   OFFICER. 

An  officer,  having  had  some  trouble  with  General 
Sherman,  being  very  angry,  presented  himself  before 
Mr.  Lincoln,  who  was  visiting  the  camp,  and  said, 
44  Mr.  President,  I  have  a  cause  of  grievance.  This 
morning  I  went  to  Colonel  Sherman  and  he  threatened 
to  shoot  me."  "Threatened  to  shoot  you?"  said  Mr. 
Lincoln.  "Well,  (in  a  stage  whisper)  if  I  were  you 
and  he  threatens  to  shoot,  I  would  not  trust  him,  for 
I  believe  he  would  do  it." 


LINCOLN'S  LOVE  OF  SOLDIER  HUMOR. 

Lincoln  loved  anything  that  savored  of  wit  or  humor 
among  the  soldiers  in  their  deprivations  and  sufferings. 
He  used  to  relate  these  two  stories  often  to  show,  he 
said,  that  neither  death  nor  danger  could  quench  the 
grim  humor  of  the  American  soldier: 

"A  soldier  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  was  being 
carried  to  the  rear  of  battle  with  both  legs  shot  off, 
who,  seeing  a  pie-woman  hovering  about,  asked,  *Say 
old  lady,  are  them  pies  sewed  or  pegged?' 


i92  STORIES    OF   THE   WAR. 

4 'And  there  was  another  one  of  the  soldiers  at  the 
battle  of  Chancellorsville,  whose  regiment,  waiting  to 
be  called  into  the  fight,  was  taking  coffee.  The  hero 
of  the  story  put  to  his  lips  a  crockery  mug  which  he 
had  carried,  with  infinite  care,  through  several 
campaigns.  A  stray  bullet,  just  missing  the  drinker's 
head,  dashed  the  mug  into  fragments  and  left  only 
the  handle  on  his  finger.  Turning  his  head  in  that 
direction,  he  scowled,  'Johnny,  you  can't  do  that 
again.'  " 

THE   PRESIDENT   AND   THE   MONITOR. 

The  President  expressed  his  belief  in  the  Monitor, 
to  Captain  Fox,  the  adviser  of  Captain  Ericsson,  who 
constructed  the  Monitor.  "I  am  not  prepared  for 
disastrous  results,  why  should  I  be?  We  have  three 
of  the  most  effective  vessels  in  Hampton  Roads,  and 
any  number  of  small  craft  that  will  hang  on  the  stern 
of  the  Merrimac  like  small  dogs  011  the  haunches  of  a 
bear.  They  may  not  be  able  to  tear  her  down,  but 
they  will  interfere  with  the  comfort  of  her  voyage. 
Her  trial  trip  will  not  be  a  pleasure  trip,  I  am  certain. 

"We  have  had  a  big  share  of  bad  luck  already,  but 
I  do  not  believe  the  future  has  any  such  misfortunes 
in  store  for  us  as  you  anticipate."  Said  Captain  Fox: 
"If  the  Merrimac  does  not  sink  our  ships,  who  is  to 
prevent  her  from  dropping  her  anchor  in  the  Potomac, 
where  that  steamer  lies,"  pointing  to  a  steamer  at 
anchor  below  the  long  bridge,  "and  throwing  her 
hundred-pound  shells  into  this  room,  or  battering 
down  the  walls  of  the  Capitol?" 

"The  Almighty,  Captain,"  answered  the  President, 


STORIES   OF   THE   WAR.  193 

excitedly,  but  without  the  least  affectation.  "I  expect 
set-backs,  defeats ;  we  have  had  them  and  shall  have 
them.  They  are  common  to  all  wars.  But  I  have  not  the 
slightest  fear  of  any  result  which  shall  fatally  impair 
our  military  and  naval  strength,  or  give  other  powers 
any  right  to  interfere  in  our  quarrel.  The  destruction 
of  the  Capitol  would  do  both. 

"I  do  not  fear  it,  for  this  is  God's  fight,  and  He  will 
win  it  in  His  own  good  time.  He  will  take  care  that 
our  enemies  will  not  push  us  too  far." 

"Speaking  of  iron-clads,"  said  the  President,  "you 
do  not  seem  to  take  the  little  Monitor  into  account.  I 
believe  in  the  Monitor  and  her  commander.  If 
Captain  Worden  does  not  give  a  good  account  of  the 
Monitor  and  of  himself,  I  shall  have  made  a  mistake 
in  following  my  judgment  for  the  first  time  since  I 
have  been  here,  Captain.  I  have  not  made  a  mistake 
in  following  my  clear  judgment  of  men  since  this  war 
began.  I  followed  that  judgment  when  I  gave 
Worden  the  command  of  the  Monitor.  I  would  make 
the  appointment  over  again  to-day.  The  Monitor 
should  be  in  Hampton  Roads  now.  She  left  New 
York  eight  days  ago."  After  the  captain  had  again 
presented  what  he  considered  the  possibilities  of 
failure,  the  President  replied,  "No,  no,  Captain,  I 
respect  your  judgment,  as  you  have  reason  to  know, 
but  this  time  you  are  all  wrong. 

"The  Monitor  was  one  of  my  inspirations ;  I  believed 
in  her  firmly  when  that  energetic  contractor  first 
showed  me  Ericsson's  plans.  Captain  Ericsson's  plain 
but  rather  enthusiastic  demonstration,  made  my  con 
version  permanent.  It  was  called  a  floating  battery 
then ;  I  called  it  a  raft  I  caught  some  of  the  inventor's 


194  STORIES   OF   THE   WAR. 

enthusiasm  and  it  has  been  growing  upon  me.  I 
thought  then,  and  I  am  confident  now,  it  is  just  what 
we  want.  I  am  sure  that  the  Monitor  is  still  afloat, 
and  that  she  will  yet  give  a  good  account  of  herself. 
Sometimes  I  think  she  may  be  the  veritable  sling  with 
a  stone  that  will  yet  smite  the  Merrimac  Philistine  in 
the  forehead." 

Soon  was  the  President's  judgment  verified,  for  the 
"Fight  of  the  Monitor  and  Merrimac"  changed  all  the 
conditions  of  naval  warfare. 

After  the  victory  was  gained,  the  presiding  Captain 
Fox  and  others  went  on  board  the  Monitor,  and 
Captain  Worden  was  requested  by  the  President  to 
narrate  the  history  of  the  encounter. 

Captain  Worden  did  so  in  a  modest  manner,  and 
apologized  for  not  being  able  better  to  provide  for 
his  guests.  The  President  smilingly  responded: 
4 'Some  uncharitable  people  say  that  old  Bourbon  is  an 
indispensable  element  in  the  fighting  qualities  of  some 
of  our  generals  in  the  field,  but,  Captain,  after  the 
account  that  we  have  heard  to-day,  no  one  will  say  that 
any  Dutch  courage  is  needed  on  board  the  Monitor." 

"It  never  has  been,  sir,"  modestly  observed  the 
captain. 

Captain  Fox  then  gave  a  description  of  what  he  saw 
of  the  engagement  and  described  it  as  indescribably 
grand.  Then,  turning  to  the  President,  he  continued, 
"Now,  standing  here  on  the  deck  of  this  battle-scarred 
vessel,  the  first  genuine  iron-clad — the  victor  in  the 
first  fight  of  iron-clads — let  me  make  a  confession,  and 
perform  an  act  of  simple  justice. 

"I  never  fully  believed  in  armored  vessels  until  1 
saw  this  battle. 


STORIES   OF   THE   WAR.  195 

"I  know  all  the  facts  which  united  to  give  us  the 
Monitor.  I  withhold  no  credit  from  Captain  Ericsson, 
her  inventor,  but  I  know  that  the  country  is  principally 
indebted  for  the  construction  of  the  vessel  to  President 
Lincoln,  and  for  the  success  of  her  trial  to  Captain 
Worden,  her  commander." 


THAT  SAVAGE  DOG. 

When  Hood's  army  had  been  scattered  into  frag 
ments,  Lincoln,  elated  by  the  defeat  of  what  had  so 
long  been  a  menacing  force  on  the  borders  of  Tenn 
essee,  was  reminded  by  its  collapse  of  the  fate  of  a 
savage  dog  belonging  to  one  of  his  neighbors  in  the 
frontier  settlements  in  which  he  lived  in  his  youth. 
"The  dog,"  he  said,  "was  the  terror  of  the  neighbor 
hood,  and  its  owner,  a  churlish  and  quarrelsome  fellow, 
took  pleasure  in  the  brute's  forcible  attitude.  Finally, 
all  ether  means  having  failed  to  subdue  the  creatiire,  a 
man  loaded  a  lump  of  meat  with  a  charge  of  powder, 
to  which  was  attached  a  slow  fuse ;  this  was  dropped 
where  the  dreaded  dog  would  find  it,  and  the  animal 
gulped  down  the  tempting  bit.  There  was  a  dull 
rumbling,  a  muffled  explosion,  and  fragments  of  the 
dog  were  seen  flying  in  every  direction.  The  grieved 
owner,  picking  up  the  shattered  remains  of  his  cruel 
favorite,  said:  'He  was  a  good  dog,  but  as  a  dog,  his 
days  of  usefulness  are  over.'  Hood's  army  was  a 
good  army,"  said  Lincoln,  by  way  of  comment,  "and 
we  were  all  afraid  of  it,  but  as  an  army,  its  usefulness 
is  gone." 


STORIES   OF  THE   WAR. 


"HELP  ME  LET  THIS  HOG  GO." 

The  terrible  butchery  at  the  battle  of  Fredericks- 
burg,  made  Lincoln  almost  broken-hearted. 

Governor  Custer,  of  Pennsylvania,  expressed  his 
regrets  that  his  description  had  so  sadly  affected  the 
President.  He  remarked:  "I  would  give  all  I  possess 
to  know  how  to  rescue  you  from  this  terrible  war." 
Then  Mr.  Lincoln's  wonderful  recuperative  powers 
asserted  themselves  and  this  marvelous  man  was 
himself. 

Lincoln's  whole  aspect  suddenly  changed,  and  he 
relieved  his  mind  by  telling  a  story. 

"This  reminds  me,  Governor,"  he  said,  "of  an  old 
farmer  out  in  Illinois  that  I  used  to  know. 

"He  took  it  into  his  head  to  go  into  hog-raising.  He 
sent  out  to  Europe  and  imported  the  finest  breed  of 
hogs  he  could  buy. 

"The  prize  hog  was  put  in  a  pen,  and  the  farmer's 
two  mischievous  boys,  James  and  John,  were  told  to 
be  sure  not  to  let  it  out.  But  James,  the  worst  of 
the  two,  let  the  brute  out  the  next  day.  The  hog  went 
straight  for  the  boys,  and  drove  John  up  a  tree,  then 
the  hog  went  for  the  seat  of  James'  trousers,  and  the 
only  way  the  boy  could  save  himself  was  by  holding 
on  to  the  hog's  tail. 

"The  hog  would  not  give  up  his  hunt,  nor  the  boy 
his  hold !  After  they  had  made  a  good  many  circles 
around  the  tree,  the  boy's  courage  began  to  give  out, 
and  he  shouted  to  his  brother,  'I  say,  John,  come 
down,  quick,  and  help  me  let  go  this  hog!' 

"Now,  Governor,  that  is  exactly  my  case.  I  wish 
some  one  would  come  and  help  me  to  let  the  hog  go. ' ' 


THE    FRETTING    QUESTIONS    OF    EVEN    A    GREAT   WAR    SEEMED    TO    PERISH 

UNTO,  "TAD"  HAD  COMPLETED  HIS  ROMP. 


STORIES   OF   THE   WAR.  199 

"GRANT'S  WHISKY"   THE  RIGHT  KIND. 

Just  previous  to  the  fall  of  Vicksburg  a  self-con 
stituted  committee,  solicitous  for  the  morals  of  our 
armies,  took  it  upon  themselves  to  visit  the  President 
and  urge  the  removal  of  General  Grant. 

In  some  surprise  Mr.  Lincoln  inquired,  "For  what 
reason?" 

"Why,"  replied  the  spokesman,  "he  drinks  too 
much  whisky. ' ' 

4 'Ah!"  rejoined  Mr.  Lincoln,  dropping  his  lower  lip, 
"by  the  way,  gentlemen,  can  either  of  you  tell  me 
where  General  Grant  procures  his  whisky?  Because, 
if  I  can  find  out,  I  will  send  every  general  in  the  field 
a  barrel  of  it!" 


BURNSIDE   SAFE! 

Burnside  was  shut  up  in  Knoxville,  Tennessee,  for  a 
time,  and  there  was  great  solicitude  all  over  the 
country  on  his  account,  as  his  communications  with 
the  North  were  temporarily  cut  off.  One  day  Washing 
ton  was  startled.  The  long  silence  concerning  Burn- 
side's  movements  was  broken  by  an  urgent  call  from 
him  for  succor.  Lincoln,  relieved  by  the  news  that 
Burnside  was  safe,  at  least,  said  that  he  was  reminded 
of  a  woman  who  lived  in  a  forest  clearing  in  Indiana, 
her  cabin  surrounded  by  hazel  bushes,  in  which  some 
of  her  numerous  flock  of  children  were  continually 
being  lost;  when  she  heard  a  squall  from  one  of  these 
in  the  distance,  although  she  knew  that  the  child  was 
in  danger,  perhaps  frightened  by  a  rattlesnake,  she 
would  say,  "Thank  God!  there's  one  of  my  young 
ones  that  isn't  lost." 


200  STORIES   OF    THE   WAR. 

LINCOLN  AND   LITTLE    "TAD." 

"The  day  after  the  review  of  Burnside's  division 
some  photographers,"  says  Mr.  Carpenter,  "came  up 
to  the  White  House  to  make  some  stereoscopic  studies 
for  me  of  the  President's  office.  They  requested  a 
dark  closet  in  which  to  develop  the  pictures,  and  with 
out  a  thought  that  I  was  infringing  upon  anybody's 
rights,  I  took  them  to  an  unoccupied  room  of  which 
little  'Tad'  had  taken  possession  a  few  days  before, 
and  with  the  aid  of  a  couple  of  servants  had  fitted  up  a 
miniature  theater,  with  stage,  curtains,  orchestra, 
stalls,  parquet te  and  all.  Knowing  that  the  use 
required  would  interfere  with  none  of  his  arrange 
ments,  I  led  the  way  to  this  apartment. 

"Everything  went  on  well,  and  one  or  two  pictures 
had  been  taken,  when  suddenly  there  was  an  uproar. 
The  operator  came  back  to  the  office  and  said  that 
4 Tad'  had  taken  great  offense  at  the  occupation  of 
his  room  without  his  consent,  and  had  locked  the  door, 
refusing  all  admission. 

"The  chemicals  had  been  taken  inside,  and  there 
was  no  way  of  getting  at  them,  he  having  carried  off 
the  key.  In  the  midst  of  this  conversation  'Tad' 
burst  in,  in  a  fearful  passion.  He  laid  all  the  blame 
upon  me — said  that  I  had  no  right  to  use  his  room, 
and  the  men  should  not  go  in  even  to  get  their  things. 
He  had  locked  the  door  and  they  should  not  go  there 
?gain — 'they  had  no  business  in  his  room!' 

"Mr.  Lincoln  was  sitting  for  a  photograph,  and  was 
still  in  the  chair.  He  said,  very  mildly,.  'Tad,  go  and 
unlock  the  door.'  Tad  went  off  muttering  into  his 
mother's  room,  refusing  to  obey.  I  followed  him  into 


STORIES   OF   THE   WAR.  201 

the  r^.  age,  but  no  coaxing  would  pacify  him.  Upon 
my  '."  urn  to  the  President  I  found  him  still  patiently 
in  the  chair,  from  which  he  had  not  risen.  He  said: 
'Has  not  the  boy  opened  the  door?'  I  replied  that  we 
.  do  nothing  with  him — he  had  gone  off  in  a  great 
•v,*.  Mr.  Lincoln's  lips  came  together  firmly,  and 
^?-n,  suddenly  rising,  he  strode  across  the  passage 
v/ith  the  air  of  one  bent  on  punishment,  and  disap 
peared  in  the  domestic  apartments.  Directly  he 
returned  with  the  key  to  the  theater,  which  he 
unlocked  himself. 

"  'Tad,'  said  he,  half  apologetically,  'is  a  peculiar 
child.  He  was  violently  excited  when  I  went  to  him. 
I  said,  "Tad,  do  you  know  that  you  are  making  your 
father  a  great  deal  of  trouble?"  He  burst  into  tears, 
instantly  giving  me  up  the  key.'  " 


LET  THE    ELEPHANT  ESCAPE. 

Mr.  Dana  relates  the  following:  A  certain  Thomp 
son  had  been  giving  the  Government  considerable 
trouble.  Dana  received  information  that  Thompson 
was  about  to  escape  to  Liverpool. 

Calling  upon  Stan  ton,  Dana  was  referred  to  Mr. 
Lincoln. 

"The  President  was  at  the  White  House,  business 
hours  were  over,  Lincoln  was  washing  his  hands. 
'Hallo,  Dana,'  said  he,  as  I  opened  the  door,  'what  is 
it  now?'  'Well,  sir,'  I  said,  'here  is  the  Provost 
Marshal  of  Portland,  who  reports  that  Jacob  Thomp 
son  is  to  be  in  town  to-night,  and  inquires  what  orders 
we  have  to  give.'  'What  does  Stanton  say?'  he  asked. 
'Arrest  him,'  I  replied.  'Well,'  he  continued,  drawl- 


202  STORIES   OF   THE   WAR. 

ing  his  words,  'I  rather  guess  not.  When  you  have 
an  elephant  on  your  hands,  and  he  wants  to  run  away, 
better  let  him  run. '  " 


FRIGHT  A  CURE   FOR   BOILS. 

"Blair,"  said  the  President  to  his  Postmaster- 
General,  "did  you  ever  know  that  fright  has  sometimes 
proven  a  cure  for  boils?"  "No,  Mr.  President,  how 
is  that?" 

"I'll  tell  you.  Not  long  ago,  when  Colonel , 

with  his  cavalry,  was  at  the  front,  and  the  Rebs  were 
making  things  rather  lively  for  us,  the  colonel  was 
ordered  out  to  a  reconnoissance.  He  was  troubled  at 
the  time  with  a  big  boil  where  it  made  horseback 
riding  decidedly  uncomfortable.  He  finally  dis 
mounted  and  ordered  the  troops  forward  without  him. 
Soon  he  was  startled  by  the  rapid  reports  of  pistols, 
and  the  helter-skelter  approach  of  his  troops  in  full 
retreat  before  a  yelling  rebel  force.  He  forgot  every 
thing  but  the  yells,  sprang  into  his  saddle,  and  made 
capital  time  over  the  fences  and  ditches  till  safe  within 
the  lines. 

"The  pain  from  his  boil  was  gone,  and  the  boil  too, 
and  the  colonel  swore  that  there  was  no  cure  for  boilfi 
so  sure  as  fright  from  rebel  yells." 


BRIGADIER   GENERALS  MORE  PLENTIFUL 
THAN   HORSES. 

When  Pesident  Lincoln  heard  of  the  rebel  raid  at 
Fairfax,  in  which  a  brigadier- general  and  a  number  of 
valuable  horses  were  captured,  he  gravely  observed: 


STORIEvS   OF   THE   WAR.  203 

"Well,  I  am  sorry  for  the  horses." 

* '  Sorry  for  the  horses,  Mr.  President ! ' '  exclaimed  the 
Secretary  of  War,  raising  his  spectacles,  and  throwing 
himself  back  in  his  chair  in  astonishment. 

"Yes,"  replied  Mr.  Lincoln,  "I  can  make  a 
brigadier-general  in  five  minutes,  but  it  is  not  easy  to 
replace  a  hundred  and  ten  horses." 


"MASSA   LINKUM"  WORSHIPED   BY 
THE  NEGROES. 

In  1863,  Colonel  McKaye,  of  New  York,  with  Robert 
Dale  Owen  and  one  or  two  other  gentlemen,  were 
associated  as  a  committee  to  investigate  the  condition 
of  the  freedmen  on  the  coast  of  North  Carolina. 
Upon  their  return  from  Hilton  Head  they  reported  to 
the  President,  and  in  the  course  of  the  interview, 
Colonel  McKaye  related  the  following  incident: 

He  had  been  speaking  of  the  ideas  of  power  enter 
tained  by  these  people.  He  said  they  had  an  idea  of 
God,  as  the  Almighty,  and  they  had  realized  in  their 
former  position  the  power  of  their  masters.  Up  to 
the  time  of  the  arrival  among  them  of  the  Union 
forces,  they  had  no  knowledge  of  any  other  power. 
Their  masters  fled  upon  the  approach  of  our  soldiers, 
and  this  gave  the  slaves  a  conception  of  a  power  greater 
than  that  exercised  by  them.  This  power  they  called 
"Massa  Linkum." 

Colonel  McKaye  said  their  place  of  worship  was  a 
large  building  which  they  called  "the  praise  house" ; 
and  the  leader  of  the  meeting,  a  venerable  black  man, 
was  known  as  "the  praise  man."  On  a  certain  day, 
when  there  was  quite  a  large  gathering  of  the  people, 


204  STORIES   OF    THE    WAR. 

considerable  confusion  was  created  by  different 
parsons  attempting  to  tell  who  and  what  "Massa 
Linkum"  was.  In  the  midst  of  the  excitement,  the 
white-headed  leader  commanded  silence. 

"Brederin,"  said  he,  "you  don't  know  nosen'  what 
you'se  talkin*  about.  Now,  you  just  listen  to  me. 
Massa  Linkum,  he  eberywhar.  He  know  eberyting." 
Then,  solemnly  looking  up,  he  added,  "He  walk  cle 
earf  like  de  Lord!" 

Colonel  McKaye  said  that  Mr.  Lincoln  seemed  much 
affected  by  this  account.  He  did  not  smile,  as  another 
man  might  have  done,  but  got  up  from  his  chair  and 
walked  in  silence  two  or  three  times  across  the  floor. 
As  he  resumed  his  seat,  he  said,  very  impressively, 
"It  is  a  momentous  thing  to  be  the  instrument,  under 
Providence,  of  the  liberation  of  a  race." 


THE   COLORED   PEOPLE   OF   RICHMOND 
HONOR   LINCOLN. 

G.  F.  Shepley  gives  the  following  interesting 
reminiscence : 

"After  Mr.  Lincoln's  interview  with  Judge  Campbell, 
the  President  being  about  to  return  to  the  Wabash,  I 
took  him  and  Admiral  Porter  in  my  carriage.  An 
immense  concourse  of  colored  people  thronged  the 
streets,  accompanied  and  followed  the  carriage,  calling 
upon  the  President  with  the  wildest  exclamations  of 
gratitude  and  delight. 

"He  was  the  Moses,  the  Messiah,  to  the  slaves  of 
the  South.  Hundreds  of  colored  women  tossed  their 
hands  high  in  the  air  and  then  bent  down  to  the 
ground,  weeping  for  joy.  Some  shouted  songs  of 


STORIES   OF   THE   WAR.  205 

deliverance,  and  sang  the  old  plantation  refrains, 
which  prophesied  the  coming  of  a  deliverer  from 
bondage.  'God  bless  you,  Father  Abraham!'  went 
up  from  a  thousand  throats. 

"Those  only  who  have  seen  the  paroxysmal  enthu 
siasm  of  a  religious  meeting  of  slaves  can  form  an 
adequate  conception  of  the  way  in  which  tears  and 
smiles,  and  shouts  of  the  emancipated  people  evinced 
the  frenzy  of  their  gratitude  to  their  deliverer.  He 
looked  at  all  attentively,  with  a  face  expressive  only  of 
a  sort  of  pathetic  wonder. 

"Occasionally  its  sadness  would  alternate  with  one 
of  his  peculiar  smiles,  and  he  would  remark  on  the 
great  proportion  of  those  whose  color  indicated  a  mixed 
lineage  from  the  white  master  and  the  black  slave; 
and  that  reminded  him  of  some  little  stor}r  of  his  life 
in  Kentucky,  which  he  would  smilingly  tell ;  and  then 
his  face  would  relapse  again  into  that  sad  expression 
which  all  will  remember  who  saw  him  during  the  last 
few  weeks  of  the  Rebellion.  Perhaps  it  was  a  presenti 
ment  of  his  impending  fate. 

"I  accompanied  him  to  the  ship,  bade  him  farewell 
and  left  him,  to  see  his  face  no  more.  Not  long  after, 
the  bullet  of  the  assassin  arrested  the  beatings  of  one  of 
the  kindest  hearts  that  ever  throbbed  in  human  bosom. 


THE  BITER   BIT. 

The  Governor-General,  with  some  of  his  principal 
officers,  visited  Lincoln  in  the  summer  of  1864. 

They  had  been  very  troublesome  in  harboring 
blockade  runners,  and  they  were  said  to  have  carried 
on  a  large  trade  from  their  ports  with  the  Confederates. 


206  STORIES   OF   THE   WAR. 

Lincoln  treated  his  guests  with  great  courtesy, 
After  a  pleasant  interview,  the  Governor,  alluding  to 
the  coming  Presidential  election,  said  jokingly,  but 
with  a  grain  of  sarcasm,  "I  understand,  Mr.  President, 
that  everybody  votes  in  this  country.  If  we  remain 
until  November,  can  we  vote?" 

44 You  remind  me,"  replied  the  President,  "of  a 
countryman  of  yours,  a  green  emigrant  from  Ireland. 
Pat  arrived  on  election  day,  and  perhaps  was  as  eager 
as  your  Excellency  to  vote  and  to  vote  early,  and  late 
and  often. 

"So,  upon  landing  at  Castle  Garden,  he  hastened  to 
the  nearest  voting  place,  and,  as  he  approached,  the 
judge  who  received  the  ballots  inquired,  'Who  do  you 
want  to  vote  for?  On  which  side  are  )^ou?'  Poor  Pat 
was  embarrassed,  he  did  not  know  who  were  the 
candidates.  He  stopped,  scratched'  his  head,  then, 
with  the  readiness  of  his  countrymen,  he  said: 

"  'I  am  foment  the  Government,  anyhow.  Tell  me, 
if  your  Honor  plases,  which  is  the  rebellion  side,  and 
I'll  tell  you  how  I  want  to  vote.  In  ould  Ireland,  I 
was  always  on  the  rebellion  side,  and,  by  Saint  Patrick, 
I'll  do  that  same  in  America.'  Your  Excellency,"  said 
Mr.  Lincoln,  "would,  I  should  think,  not  be  at  all  at 
a  loss  on  which  side  to  vote!" 


LINCOLN'S  TENDERNESS. 

When  Lincoln  was  on  his  way  to  the  National 
Cemetery  at  Gettysburg,  an  old  gentleman  told  him 
that  his  only  son  fell  on  Little  Round  Top  at  Gettys 
burg,  and  he  was  going  to  look  at  the  spot. 


STORIES   OF   THE    WAR.  207 

Mr.  Lincoln  replied :  *  *  You  have  been  called  on  to 
make  a  terrible  sacrifice  for  the  Union,  and  a  visit  to 
that  spot,  I  fear,  will  open  your  wounds  afresh. 

"But,  oh,  my  dear  sir,  if  we  had  reached  the  end  of 
such  sacrifices,  and  had  nothing  left  for  us  to  do  but 
to  place  garlands  on  the  graves  of  those  who  have 
already  fallen,  we  could  give  thanks  even  amidst  our 
tears ;  but  when  I  think  of  the  sacrifices  of  life  yet  to 
be  offered,  and  the  hearts  and  homes  yet  to  be  made 
desolate  before  this  dreadful  war  is  over,  my  heart  is 
like  lead  within  me,  and  I  feel  at  times  like  hiding  in 
deep  darkness. ' ' 

At  one  of  the  stopping  places  of  the  train,  a  very 
beautiful  little  child,  having  a  bunch  of  rosebuds  in 
her  hand,  was  lifted  up  to  an  open  window  of  the 
President's  car.  "Floweth  for  the  President."  The 
President  stepped  to  the  window,  took  the  rosebuds, 
bent  down  and  kissed  the  child,  saying:  "You  are  a 
sweet  little  rosebud  yourself.  I  hope  your  life  will 
open  into  perpetual  beauty  and  goodness." 


HOW  LINCOLN  PACIFIED   DISAPPOINTED  OFFICE 
SEEKERS. 

A  gentleman  states  in  a  Chicago  journal:  "In  the 
winter  of  1864,  after  serving  three  years  in  the  Union 
Army,  and  being  honorably  discharged,  I  made 
application  for  the  post  sutlersfyip  at  Point  Lookout. 
My  father  being  interested,  we  made  application  to 
Mr.  Stanton,  then  Secretary  of  War. 

"We  obtained  an  audience,  and  were  ushered  into 
the  presence  of  the  most  pompous  man  I  ever  met. 
As  I  entered  he  waved  his  hand  for  me  to  stop  at  a 


208  STORIES   OF   THE   WAR. 

given  distance  from  him,  and  then  put  these  questions, 
viz. : 

44  'Did  you  serve  three  years  in  the  army?' 

'"I  did,  sir.' 

44  4Were  you  honorably  discharged?' 

44 'I  was,  sir.' 

'  'Let  me  see  your  discharge.' 

44I  gave  it  to  him.     He  looked  it  over,  then  said: 

44  4Were  you  ever  wounded?' 

4  4 1  told  him  yes,  at  the  battle  of  Williamsburg,  May 
5,  1861. 

44 He  then  said:  'I  think  we  can  give  this  position 
to  a  soldier  who  has  lost  an  arm  or  leg,  he  being  more 
deserving' ;  and  he  then  said  I  looked  hearty  and 
healthy  enough  to  serve  three  years  more.  He  would 
not  give  me  a  chance  to  argue  my  case. 

14  The  audience  was  at  an  end.  He  waved  his  hand 
to  me,  I  was  then  dismissed  from  the  august  presence 
of  the  Honorable  Secretary  of  War. 

44  My  father  was  waiting  for  me  in  the  hallway,  who 
saw  by  my  countenance  that  I  was  not  successful.  I 
said  to  my  father : 

44  4Let  us  go  over  to  Mr.  Lincoln;  he  may  give  us 
more  satisfaction. ' 

44  He  said  it  would  do  me  no  good,  but  we  went 
over.  Mr.  Lincoln's  reception  room  was  full  of  ladies 
and  gentlemen  when  we  entered,  and  the  scene  was 
one  I  shall  never  forget. 

44  On  her  knees  was  a  woman  in  the  agonies  of 
despair,  with  tears  rolling  down  her  cheeks,  imploring 
for  the  life  of  her  son,  who  had  deserted  and  had  been 
condemned  to  be  shot.  I  heard  Mr.  Lincoln  say: 

44  4 Madam,  do  not  act  in  this  way,  it  is  agony  to  me; 


STORIES   OF   THE   WAR.  209 

I  would  pardon  your  son  if  it  was  in  my  power,  but 
there  must  be  an  example  made  or  I  will  have  no  army, ' 

14 At  this  speech  the  woman  fainted.  Lincoln 
motioned  to  his  attendant,  who  picked  the  woman  up 
and  carried  her  out.  All  in  the  room  were  in  tears. 

"But  now,  changing  the  scene  from  the  sublime  to 
the  ridiculous,  the  next  applicant  for  favor  was  a  big, 
buxom  Irish  woman,  who  stood  before  the  President, 
with  arms  akimbo,  saying : 

'*  'Mr.  Lincoln,  can't  I  sell  apples  on  the  railroad?' 

"Lincoln  said:  'Certainly,  madam,  you  can  sell  all 
you  wish. ' 

"But  she  said:  'You  must  give  me  a  pass,  or  the 
soldiers  will  not  let  me.' 

"Lincoln  then  wrote  a  few  lines  and  gave  it  to  her, 
who  said: 

"  'Thank  you,  sir;  God  bless  you.' 

"This  shows  how  quick  and  clear  were  all  this  man's 
decisions. 

"I  stood  and  watched  him  for  two  hours,  and  he 
dismissed  each  case  as  quickly  as  the  above,  with 
satisfaction  to  all. 

"My  turn  soon  came.  Lincoln  turned  to  my  father 
and  said: 

'Now,  gentlemen,  be    pleased   to  be  as  quick  as 
possible  with  your  business,  as  it  is  growing  late. ' 

"My  father  then  stepped  lip  to  Lincoln  and  intro 
duced  me  to  him.  Lincoln  then  said : 

'Take  a  seat,  gentlemen,  and  state  your  business 
as  quickly  as  possible. ' 

"There  was  but  one  chair  by  Lincoln,  so  he  motioned 
my  father  to  sit,  while  I  stood.  My  father  stated  the 
business  to  him  as  stated  above.  He  then  said : 


2io  vSTORIES   OF   THE   WAR. 

"  'Have  you  seen  Mr.  Stanton?' 

"We  told  him  yes,  that  he  had  refused.  He  (Mr. 
Lincoln)  then  said: 

"  'Gentlemen,  this  is  Mr.  Stanton's  business;  I  can 
not  interfere  with  him ;  he  attends  to  all  these  matters 
and  I  am  sorry  I  cannot  help  you.' 

"He  saw  that  we  were  disappointed,  and  did  his  best 
to  revive  our  spirits.  He  succeeded  well  with  my 
father,  who  was  a  Lincoln  man,  and  who  was  a  staunch 
Republican. 

"Mr.  Lincoln  then  said: 

"  'Now,  gentlemen,  I  will  tell  you  what  it  is;  I  have 
thousands  of  applications  like  this  every  day,  but  we 
cannot  satisfy  all  for  this  reason,  that  these  positions 
are  like  office  seekers — there  are  too  many  pigs  for 
the  tits. ' 

"The  ladies  who  were  listening  to  the  conversation 
placed  their  handkerchiefs  to  their  faces  and  turned 
away.  But  the  joke  of  Old  Abe  put  us  all  in  a  good 
humor.  We  then  left  the  presence  of  the  greatest  and 
most  just  man  who  ever  lived  to  fill  the  Presidential 
chair." 


LINCOLN'S  GLIMPSE  OF  WAR. 

When  Lincoln  was  in  the  White  House  he  told  this 
story : 

The  only  time  he  ever  saw  blood  in  this  campaign, 
was  one  morning  when,  marching  up  a  little  valley 
that  makes  into  the  Rock  River  bottom,  to  reinforce  a 
squad  of  outposts  that  were  thought  to  be  in  danger, 
they  came  upon  the  tent  occupied  by  the  other  party 
just  at  sunrise.  The  men  had  neglected  to  place  any 


STORIES   OF   THE   WAR.  an 

guard  at  night,  and  had  been  slaughtered  in  their  sleep. 
As  the  reinforcing  party  came  up  the  slope  on  which 
the  camp  had  been  made,  Lincoln  saw  them  all  lying 
with  their  heads  towards  the  rising  sun,  and  the  round 
red  spot  that  marked  where  they  had  been  scalped 
gleamed  more  redly  yet  in  the  ruddy  light  of  the  sun. 
This  scene  years  afterwards  he  recalled  with  a  shudder. 


TWO  HUNDRED   AND   FIFTY  THOUSAND    PASSES 
TO  RICHMOND. 

A  gentleman  called  upon  President  Lincoln  before 
the  fall  of  Richmond  and  solicited  a  pass  for  that 
place.  "I  should  be  very  happy  to  oblige  you,"  said 
the  President,  "if  my  passes  were  respected;  but  the 
fact  is,  I  have,  within  the  past  two  years,  given  passes 
to  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  men  to  go  to 
Richmond  and  not  one  has  got  there  yet. " 


THE  SON  OF  LINCOLN  DISPLAYS  A  REBEL  FLAG. 

"One  of  the  prettiest  incidents  in  the  closing  days 
of  the  Civil  War  occurred  when  the  troops  *  marching 
home  again'  passed  in  grand  form,  if  with  well-worn 
uniforms  and  tattered  bunting,  before  the  White 
House,"  says  Harper's  Young  People. 

"Naturally,  an  immense  crowd  had  assembled  on  the 
streets,  the  lawns,  porches,  balconies,  and  windows, 
even  those  of  the  executive  mansion  itself  being 
crowded  to  excess.  A  central  figure  was  that  of  the 
President,  Abraham  Lincoln,  who,  with  bared  head, 
unfurled  and  waved  our  nation's  flag  in  the  midst  of 
lusty  cheers. 

"But  suddenly  there  was  an  unexpected  sight. 


212  STORIES   OF   THE   WAR. 

"A  small  boy  leaned  forward  and  sent  streaming  to 
the  air  the  banner  of  the  boys  in  gray.  It  was  an  old 
flag  which  had  been  captured  from  the  Confederates, 
and  which  the  -urchin,  the  President's  second  son,  Tad, 
had  obtained  possession  of  and  considered  an  additional 
triumph  to  unfurl  on  this  all-important  day, 

"Vainly  did  the  servant  who  had  followed  him  to  the 
window  plead  with  him  to  desist.  No,  Master  Tad, 
Pet  of  the  White  House,  was  not  to  be  prevented  from 
adding  to  the  loyal  demonstration  of  the  hour. 

"To  his  surprise,  however,  the  crowd  viewed  it 
differently.  Had  it  floated  from  any  other  window  in 
the  capital  that  day,  no  doubt  it  would  have  been  the 
target  of  contempt  and  abuse;  but  when  the  Presi 
dent,  understanding  what  had  happened,  turned,  with 
a  smile  on  his  grand,  plain  face,  and  showed  his 
approval  by  a  gesture  and  expression,  cheer  after  cheer 
rent  the  air. 

"It  was,  surely  enough,  the  expression  of  peace  and 
good-will  which,  of  all  our  commanders,  none  was 
better  pleased  to  promote  than  our  commander-in- 
chief." 


LINCOLN  FULFILLS  HIS  VOW. 

The  following  incident,  remarkable  for  its  significant 
facts,  is  related  by  Mr.  Carpenter,  the  artist : 

"Mr.  Chase,"  said  Mr.  Carpenter,  "told  me  that  at 
the  Cabinet  meeting  immediately  after  the  battle  of 
Antietam  and  just  prior  to  the  issue  of  the  Proclama 
tion,  the  President  entered  upon  the  business  before 
them,  saying: 

'The  time  for  the  annunciation  of  the  emancipa- 


STORIES   OF   THE   WAR.  213 

tion  proclamation  could  be  no  longer  delayed.  Public 
sentiment  would  sustain  it — many  of  his  warmest 
friends  and  supporters  demanded  it — and  he  had 
promised  his  God  he  would  do  it!' 

"The  last  part  of  this  was  uttered  in  a  low  tone,  and 
appeared  to  be  heard  by  no  one  but  Secretary  Chase, 
who  was  sitting  near  him.  He  asked  the  President  if 
he  correctly  understood  him.  Mr.  Lincoln  replied : 

"  'I  made  a  solemn  vow  before  God  that  if  General 
Lee  was  driven  back  from  Pennsylvania,  I  would  crown 
the  result  by  the  Declaration  of  freedom  to  the  slaves. ' 

"In  February,  1865,  a  few  days  after  the  constitu 
tional  amendment,  I  went  to  Washington  and  was 
received  by  Mr.  Lincoln  with  the  kindness  and  famil 
iarity  which  had  characterized  our  previous  intercourse. 

"I  said  to  him  at  this  time  that  I  was  very  proud 
to  have  been  the  artist  to  have  first  conceived  the 
design  of  painting  a  picture  commemorative  of  the 
Act  of  the  Emancipation;  that  subsequent  occurrences 
had  only  confirmed  my  first  judgment  of  that  act  as 
the  most  sublime  moral  event  in  our  history. 

'Yes,'  said  he — and  never  do  I  remember  to  have 
noticed  in  him  more  earnestness  of  expression  or 
manner — 'as  affairs  have  turned,  it  is  the  central  act 
of  my  administration,  and  the  great  event  of  the 
nineteenth  century.'  " 


"LET  JEFF.  ESCAPE,  I  DON'T  WANT  HIM." 

When  Grant  saw  that  Lee  must  soon  capitulate, 
Grant  asked  the  President  whether  he  should  try  to 
capture  Jeff.  Davis,  or  let  him  escape  from  the  country 
if  he  would.  The  President  said: 


*I4  STORIES   OF   THE   WAR. 

4 'About  that,  I  told  him  the  story  of  an  Irishman, 
who  had  the  pledge  of  Father  Matthew.  He  became 
terribly  thirsty,  and  applied  to  the  bartender  for  a 
lemonade,  and  while  it  was  being  prepared  he 
whispered  to  him,  'And  couldn't  ye  put  a  little  brandy 
in  it  all  unbeknown  to  myself?'  I  told  Grant  if  he 
could  let  Jeff.  Davis  escape  all  unbeknown  to  him 
self,  to  let  him  go,  I  didn't  want  him." 


THE  COLORED  PEOPLE'S  NEW  YEAR'S  RECEPTION. 

The  Presidential  reception  on  New  Year's  day,  1865, 
was  the  occasion  of  a  remarkable  spectacle  for  Wash 
ington,  in  the  appearance  of  the  colored  people  at  the 
White  House.  They  waited  around  until  the  crowd 
of  white  visitors  diminished,  when  they  made  bold  to 
enter  the  hall.  Some  of  them  were  richly  dressed, 
while  others  wore  the  garb  of  poverty;  but  alike 
intent  on  seeing  the  man  who  had  set  their  nation 
free,  they  pressed  forward,  though  with  hesitation, 
into  the  presence  of  the  President. 

Says  an  eye-witness :  ' '  For  nearly  two  hours,  Mr. 
Lincoln  had  been  shaking  hands  with  the  'sovereigns' 
and  had  become  excessively  weary  and  his  grasp 
became  languid;  but  here  his  nerves  rallied  at  the 
unwonted  sight,  and  he  welcomed  this  motley  crowd 
with  a  heartiness  that  made  them  wild  with  exceeding 
joy.  They  laughed  and  wept,  and  wept  and  laughed 
— exclaiming  through  their  blinding  tears,  'God  bless 
you !  God  bless  Abraham  Lincoln !  God  bless  Massa 
Linkum!'  " 


•TORIES   OF  THE   WAR.  217 

DANGERS  OF  ASSASSINATION. 

The  President  said  philosophically,  "I  long  ago  made 
up  my  mind  that  if  anybody  wants  to  kill  me,  he  will 
do  it.  Besides,  in  this  case,  it  seems  to  me,  the  man 
who  would  succeed  me,  would  be  just  as  objectionable 
to  my  enemies — if  I  have  any. ' ' 

One  dark  night,  as  he  was  going  out  with  a 
friend,  he  took  along  a  heavy  cane,  remarking 
good-naturedly:  "'Mother'  (Mrs.  Lincoln)  has 
got  a  notion  into  her  head  that  I  shall  be  assassin 
ated,  and  to  please  her  I  take  a  cane  when  I  go 
over  to  the  War  Department  at  night — when  I  don't 
forget  it." 

Mr.  Nichols  relates  this  thrilling  incident:  "One 
night  I  was  doing  sentinel  duty,  at  the  entrance  to  the 
Soldier's  Home.  This  was  about  the  middle  of 
August,  1864.  About  eleven  o'clock  I  heard  a  rifle 
shot,  in  the  direction  of  the  city,  and  shortly  after 
wards  I  heard  approaching  hoof  beats.  In  two  or  three 
minutes  a  horse  came  dashing  up.  I  recognized  the 
belated  President.  The  President  was  bareheaded. 
The  President  simply  thought  that  his  horse  had  taken 
fright  at  the  discharge  of  the  firearms. 

"On  going  back  to  the  place  where  the  shot  had 
been  heard,  we  found  the  President's  hat.  It  was  a 
plain  silk  hat,  and  upon  examination  we  discovered 
a  bullet  hole  through  the  crown. 

"The  next  day,  upon  receiving  the  hat,  the  Pres 
ident  remarked  that  it  was  made  by  some  foolish 
marksman,  and  was  not  intended  for  him;  but 
added,  that  he  wished  nothing  said  about  the 
matter." 


STORIES   OF   THE   WAR. 


INCIDENT  IN  LINCOLN'S  LAST  SPEECH. 

Edward,  the  conservative  but  dignified  butler  of  the 
White  House,  was  seen  struggling  with  Tad  and  trying 
to  drag  him  back  from  the  window  from  which  was 
waving  a  Confederate  flag  captured  in  some  fight  and 
given  to  the  boy.  Edward  conquered  and  Tad,  rush 
ing  to  find  his  father,  met  him  coming  forward  to 
make,  as  it  proved,  his  last  speech. 

The  speech  began  with  these  words,  "We  meet  this 
evening,  not  in  sorrow,  but  in  gladness  of  heart." 
Having  his  speech  written  in  loose  leaves,  and  being 
compelled  to  hold  a  candle  in  the  other  hand,  he  would 
let  the  loose  leaves  drop  to  the  floor  one  by  one.  Tad 
picked  them  up  as  they  fell,  and  impatiently  called  for 
more  as  they  fell  from  his  father's  hand. 


LINCOLN'S   LAST  AFTERNOON. 

During  the  afternoon  the  President  signed  a  pardon 
for  a  soldier  sentenced  to  be  shot  for  desertion, 
remarking  as  he  did  so,  "Well,  I  think  the  boy  can  do 
us  more  good  above  ground  than  under  ground. ' ' 

He  also  approved  an  application  for  the  discharge 
on  taking  the  oath  of  allegiance,  of  a  rebel  prisoner, 
in  whose  petition  he  wrote,  "Let  it  be  done." 

This  act  of  mercy  was  his  last  official  order. 


Miscellaneous  Stories 
and   Incidents. 


SONG  COMPOSED   BY  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

Read  in  honor  of  his  sister's  wedding,  and  sung  at 
that  time  by  the  Lincoln  family : 

ADAM    AND    EVE'S    WEDDING    SONG. 

When  Adam  was  created, 

He  dwelt  in  Eden's  shade, 
As  Moses  has  recorded, 

And  soon  a -bride  was  made. 

Ten  thousand  times  ten  thousand 
Of  creatures  swarmed  around 

Before  a  bride  was  formed, 
And  yet  no  mate  was  found. 

The  Lord  then  was  not  willing 

That  man  should  be  alone, 
And  caused  a  sleep  upon  him, 

And  from  him  took  a  bone. 

And  closed  the  flesh  instead  thereof, 
And  then  he  took  the  same 

219 


220  STORIES   AND   INCIDENTS. 

And  of  it  made  a  woman, 
And  brought  her  to  the  man. 

Then  Adam  he  rejoiced 
To  see  his  loving  bride, 

A  part  of  his  own  body, 
The  product  of  his  side. 

The  woman  was  not  taken 
From  Adam's  feet,  we  see, 

So  he  must  not  abuse  her, 
The  meaning  seems  to  be. 

The  woman  was  not  taken 
From  Adam's  head,  we  know, 

To  show  she  must  not  rule  him — 
'Tis  evidently  so. 

The  woman,  she  was  taken 
From  under  Adam's  arm, 

So  she  must  be  protected 
From  injuries  and  harm. 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  LINCOLN  IN  A  SINGLE 
PARAGRAPH. 

The  compiler  of  the  "Dictionary  of  Congress"  states 
that,  while  preparing  the  work  for  publication  in  1858, 
he  sent  to  Mr.  Lincoln  the  usual  request  for  a  sketch 
of  his  life,  and  received  the  following  reply: 

"Born  February  12,  1809,  in  Hardin  County,  Ky. 
Education  defective.  Profession,  a  lawyer.  Have 


STORIES   AND    INCIDENTS.  221 

been  a  Captain  of  Volunteers  in  Black  Hawk  War. 
Postmaster  at  a  very  small  office.  Four  times  a  mem 
ber  of  the  Illinois  Legislature,  and  was  a  member  of 
the  Lower  House  of  Congress." 


DEATH  OP  LINCOLN'S  MOTHER. 

"A  great  man,"  says  J.  G.  Holland,  "never  drew  his 
infant  life  from  a  purer  or  more  womanly  bosom  than 
her  own;  and  Mr.  Lincoln  always  looked  back  to  her 
with  unspeakable  affection.  Long  after  her  sensitive 
heart  and  weary  hand  had  crumbled  into  dust,  and  had 
climbed  to  life  again  in  forest  flowers,  he  said  to  a 
friend,  with  tears  in  his  eyes:  'All  that  I  am,  or  hope 
to  be,  I  owe  to  my  angel  mother — blessings  on  her 
memory!'  "  She  was  five  feet  and  five  inches  high,  a 
slender,  a  pale,  sad,  and  sensitive  woman,  with  much 
in  her  nature  that  was  truly  heroic,  and  much  that 
shrank  from  the  rude  life  around  her. 

Her  death  occurred  in  1818,  scarcely  two  years  from 
her  removal  from  Kentucky  to  Indiana,  and  when 
Abraham  was  in  his  tenth  year.  They  laid  her  to  rest 
under  the  trees  near  her  cabin  home,  and,  sitting  on 
her  grave,  the  little  boy  wept  his  irreparable  loss. 


LINCOLN'S  RELIGIOUS  BELIEF. 

Abraham  Lincoln,  says  David  P.  Thompson,  had  the 
good  fortune  to  be  trained  by  a  godly  mother  and 
step-mother.  The  two  books  which  made  the  most 
impression  on  his  character  were  the  Bible  and  Weem's 
* '  Life  of  Washington. ' '  The  former  he  read  with  such 
diligence  that  he  knew  it  almost  by  heart,  and  the 


122  STORIES   AND   INCIDENTS. 

words  of  Scripture  became  so  much  a  part  of  his  nature 
that  he  rarely  made  a  speech  or  wrote  a  paper  of  any 
length  without  quoting  its  language  or  teachings. 

One  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  notable  religious  utterances 
was  his  reply  to  a  deputation  of  colored  people  at 
Baltimore  who  presented  him  a  Bible.  He  said:  "In 
regard  to  the  great  book,  I  have  only  to  say  it  is  the 
best  gift  which  God  has  ever  given  man.  All  the  good 
from  the  Savior  of  the  world  is  communicated  to  us 
through  this  book.  But  for  this  book  we  could  not 
know  right  from  wrong.  All  those  things  desirable  to 
man  are  contained  in  it. ' ' 

Colonel  Rusling  overheard  the  following  conversa 
tion  between  President  Lincoln  and  General  Sickles, 
just  after  the  victory  of  Gettysburg:  "The  fact  is, 
General,"  said  the  President,  "in  the  stress  and  pinch 
of  the  campaign  there,  I  went  to  my  room,  and  got 
down  on  my  knees  and  prayed  God  Almighty  for  vic 
tory  at  Gettysburg.  I  told  Him  that  this  was  His 
country,  and  the  war  was  His  war,  but  that  we  really 
couldn't  stand  another  Fredericksburg  or  Chancellors- 
ville.  And  then  and  there  I  made  a  solemn  vow  with 
my  Maker  that  if  He  would  stand  by  you,  boys,  at 
Gettysburg,  I  would  stand  by  Him.  And  He  did,  and 
I  will!  And  after  this  I  felt  that  God  Almighty  had 
taken  the  whole  thing  into  His  hands. ' '  Mr.  Lincoln 
said  all  this  with  great  solemnity. 


CONCERNING  MR.  LINCOLN'S  RELIGIOUS  VIEWS. 

The  Rev.  Mr.  Willets,  of  Brooklyn,  gives  an  account 
of  a  conversation  with  Mr.  Lincoln,  on  the  part  of  a 
lady  of  his  acquaintance  connected  with  the  "Christian 


STORIES   AND    INCIDENTS.  223 

Commission,"  who,  in  the  prosecution  of  her  duties, 
had  several  interviews  with  him. 

The  President,  it  seemed,  had  been  much  impressed 
with  the  devotion  and  earnestness  of  purpose  mani 
fested  by  the  lady,  and  on  one  occasion,  after  she  had 
discharged  the  object  of  her  visit,  he  said  to  her: 

"Mrs. ,  I  have  formed  a  high  opinion  of  your 

Christian  character,  and  now,  as  we  are  alone,  I  have 
a  mind  to  ask  you  to  give  me  in  brief  your  idea  of 
what  constitutes  a  true  religious  experience." 

The  lady  replied  at  some  length,  stating  that,  in  her 
judgment,  it  consisted  of  a  conviction  of  one's  own 
sinfulness  and  weakness,  and  a  personal  need  of  the 
Savior  for  .strength  and  support ;  that  views  of  mere 
doctrine  might  and  would  differ,  but  when  one  was 
really  brought  to  feel  his  need  of  divine  help,  and  to 
seek  the  aid  of  the  Holy  Spirit  for  strength  and  guid 
ance,  it  was  satisfactory  evidence  of  his  having  been 
born  again.  This  was  the  substance  of  her  reply. 

When  she  had  concluded  Mr.  Lincoln  was  very 
thoughtful  for  a  few  moments.  He  at  length  said, 
very  earnestly:  "If  what  you  have  told  me  is  really  a 
correct  view  of  this  great  subject,  I  think  I  can  say 
with  sincerity  that  I  hope  I  am  a  Christian.  I  had 
lived,"  he  continued,  "until  my  boy  Willie  died  with 
out  fully  realizing  these  things.  That  blow  over 
whelmed  me.  It  showed  me  my  weakness  as  I  had 
never  felt  it  before,  and  if  I  can  take  what  you  have 
stated  as  a  test,  I  think  I  can  safely  say  that  I  know 
something  of  that  change  of  which  you  speak;  and  I 
will  further  add,  that  it  has  been  my  intention  for 
some  time,  at  a  suitable  opportunity,  to  make  a  public 
religious  profession. '  * 


424  STORIES   AND    INCIDENTS. 

LINCOLN'S  RELIGION. 

He  once  remarked  to  a  friend  that  his  religion  was 
like  that  of  an  old  man  named  Glenn,  in  Indiana, 
whom  he  heard  speak  at  a  church  meeting,  and  wno 
said,  "When  I  do  good,  I  feel  good;  when  I  do  bad,  I 
feel  bad;  and  that's  my  religion." 

Mrs.  Lincoln  herself  has  said  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had 
no  faith — no  faith,  in  the  usual  acceptance  of  those 
words.  "He  never  joined  a  church;  but  still,  as  I 
believe,  he  was  a  religious  man  by  nature.  He  first 
seemed  to  think  about  the  subject  when  oar  boy  Willie 
died,  and  then  more  than  ever  about  the  time  he  went 
to  Gettysburg;  but  it  was  a  kind  of  poetry  in  his 
nature,  and  he  never  was  a  technical  Christian." 


LINCOLN'S  DEFINITION  OF  BIOGRAPHY. 

Lincoln  had  been  reading  a  few  pages  of  the  life  of 
Edmund  Burke,  when,  throwing  it  on  the  table,  he 
exclaimed,  "No,  sir,  I've  read  enough  of  it.  It's  like 
all  the  others.  Biographies  as  generally  written  are 
not  only  misleading,  but  false. 

"The  author  of  that  Life  of  Burke  makes  a  wonder 
ful  hero  out  of  his  subject.  He  magnifies  his  perfec 
tions,  and  suppresses  his  imperfections.  He  is  so 
faithful  in  his  zeal,  and  so  lavish  in  his  praise  of  his 
every  act,  that  one  is  almost  driven  to  believe  that 
Burke  never  made  a  mistake  or  failure  in  his  life. ' ' 

He  lapsed  into  a  brown  study,  but  presently  broke 
out  again:  "Billy,  I've  wondered  why  book  publishers 
and  merchants  don't  have  blank  biographies  on  their 
shelves,  always  ready  for  an  emergency ;  so  that  if  a 


STORIES   AND   INCIDENTS.  225 

man  happens  to  die,  his  heirs  or  his  friends,  if  they 
wish  to  perpetuate  his  memory,  can  purchase  one 
already  written,  but  with  blanks.  These  blanks  they 
can  fill  up  at  their  pleasure  with  rosy  sentences  full  of 
high-sounding  praise.  In  most  instances  they  com 
memorate  a  lie,  and  cheat  posterity  out  of  the  truth." 
This  emphatic  avowal  of  sentiment  from  Mr.  Lin 
coln  not  only  fixes  his  estimate  of  ordinary  biography, 
but  was  his  vindication  in  advance,  when  assailed  for 
telling  the  truth. 


LINCOLN'S  FAVORITE  POEM. 
OH!     WHY    SHOULD    THE   SPIRIT    OF    MORTAL    BE    PROUD? 

"The  evening  of  March  22d,  1864,"  says  F.  B.  Car 
penter,  "was  a  most  interesting  one  to  me.  I  was 
with  the  President  alone  in  his  office  for  several  hours. 
Busy  with  pen  and  papers  when  I  went  in,  he  presently 
threw  them  aside  and  commenced  talking  to  me  of 
Shakespeare,  of  whom  he  was  very  fond.  Little 
'Tad,'  his  son,  coming  in,  he  sent  to  the  library  for  a 
copy  of  the  plays,  and  then  read  to  me  several  of  his 
favorite  passages.  Relapsing  into  a  sadder  strain,  he 
laid  the  book  aside,  and,  leaning  back  in  his  chair, 
said: 

14  'There  is  a  poem  which  has  been  a  great  favorite 
with  me  for  years,  which  was  first  shown  to  me  when 
a  young  man  by  a  friend,  and  which  I  afterward  saw 
and  cut  from  a  newspaper  and  learned  by  heart.  I 
would,'  he  continued,  'give  a  great  deal  to  know  who 
wrote  it,  but  I  have  never  been  able  to  ascertain/ 
Then,  half-closing  his  eyes,  he  repeated  the  verses  to 
me,  as  follows: 


226  STORIES   AND   INCIDENTS. 

"Oh!  why  should  the  spirit  of  mortal  be  proud? — 
Like  a  swift-fleeting  meteor,  a  fast-flying  cloud, 
A  flash  of  the  lightning,  a  break  of  the  wave, 
He  passeth  from  life  to  his  rest  in  the  grave. 

"The  leaves  of  the  oak  and  the  willow  shall  fade, 
Be  scattered  around,  and  together  be  laid ; 
And  the  young  and  the  old,  and  the  low  and  the  high, 
Shall  moulder  to  dust,  and  together  shall  lie. 

"The  infant  a  mother  attended  and  loved; 
The  mother,  that  infant's  affection  who  proved, 
The  husband,  that  mother  and  infant  who  blessed — 
Each,  all,  are  away  to  their  dwellings  of  rest. 

"The  maid  on  whose  cheek,  on  whose  brow,  in  whose 

eye, 

Shone  beauty  and  pleasure — her  triumphs  are  by; 
And  the  memory  of  those  who  loved  her  and  praised, 
Are  alike  from  the  minds  of  the  living  erased. 

"The  hand  of  the  king,  that  the  sceptre  hath  borne, 
The  brow  of  the  priest,  that  the  mitre  hath  worn, 
The  eye  of  the  sage,  and  the  heart  of  the  brave, 
Are  hidden  and  lost  in  the  depths  of  the  grave. 

* 4  The  peasant,  whose  lot  was  to  sow  and  to  reap, 

The  herdsman,   who  climbed  with  his  goats  up  the 

steep, 

The  beggar,  who  wandered  in  search  of  his  bread, 
Have  faded  away  like  the  grass  that  we  tread. 


STORIES   AND    INCIDENTS.  227 

"The  saint,  who  enjoyed  the  communion  of  heaven, 
The  sinner,  who  dared  to  remain  unforgiven, 
The  wise  and  the  foolish,  the  guilty  and  just, 
Have  quietly  mingled  their  bones  in  the  dust. 

"So  the  multitude  goes — like  the  flower  or  the  weed, 
That  withers  away  to  let  others  succeed; 
So  the  multitude  comes — even  those  we  behold, 
To  repeat  every  tale  that  has  often  been  told: 

"For  we  are  the  same  our  fathers  have  been; 
We  see  the  same  sights  our  fathers  have  seen ; 
We  drink  the  same  stream,  we  view  the  same  sun, 
And  run  the  same  course  our  fathers  have  run. 

"The  thoughts  we   are   thinking,   our  fathers  would 

think ; 
From  the  death  we  are  shrinking,  our  fathers  would 

shrink ; 

To  the  life  we  are  clinging,  they  also  would  cling — 
But  it  speeds  from  us  all  like  a  bird  on  the  wing. 

"They  loved — but  the  story  we  cannot  unfold; 
They  scorned— but  the  heart  of  the  haughty  is  cold; 
They  grieved — but   no  wail  from  their  slumber  will 

come; 
They  joyed — but  the  tongue  of  their  gladness  is  dumb. 

4  *  They  died — a?e,  they  died— and  we  things  that  are 

now, 

That  walk  on  the  turf  that  lies  o'er  their  brow, 
And  make  in  their  dwellings  a  transient  abode, 
Meet  the  things  that  they  met  on  their  pilgrimage  road. 


228  STORIES   AND   INCIDENTS. 

"Yea!  hope  and  despondency,  pleasure  and  pain, 
Are  mingled  together  in  sunshine  and  rain ; 
And  the  smile  and  the  tear,  the  song  and  the  dirge, 
Still  follow  each  other,  like  surge  upon  surge. 


'Tis  the   wink   of   an   eye, — 'tis   the   draught   of   a 

breath ; 

From  the  blossom  of  health  to  the  paleness  of  death, 
From  the  gilded  saloon  to  the  bier  and  the  shroud : — 
Oh!  why  should  the  spirit  of  mortal  be  proud?" 

(This  poem  was  written  by  Wm.  Knox,  a  Scotch 
man.) 


HENRY  J.  RAYMOND'S  REMINISCENCES  OF  LINCOLN. 

HIS    HUMOR,    SHREWDNESS    AND    SENTIMENT. 

It  has  been  well  said  by  a  profound  critic  of  Shakes 
peare,  and  it  occurs  to  me  as  very  appropriate  in  this 
connection,  that  "the  spirit  which  held  the  woe  of  Lear 
and  the  tragedy  of  Hamlet  would  have  broken  had  it 
not  also  had  the  humor  of  the  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor 
and  the  merriment  of  the  Midsummer  Night's  Dream. " 
This  is  as  true  of  Mr.  Lincoln  as  it  was  of  Shakespeare. 
The  capacity  to  tell  and  enjoy  a  good  anecdote  no 
doubt  prolonged  his  life.  I  have  often  heard  this 
asserted  by  one  of  his  most  intimate  friends.  And  the 
public  impression  of  his  fecundity  in  this  respect  was 
not  exaggerated.  Mr.  Beecher  once  observed  to  me 
of  his  own  wealth  of  illustration,  that  he  "thought  in 
figures,"  or,  in  other  words,  that  an  argument  habitu- 


STORIES   AND   INCIDENTS.  229 

ally  took  on  that  form  in  his  mind.  This  was  pre 
eminently  true  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  The  "points"  of  his 
argument  were  driven  home  in  this  way  as  they  could 
be  in  no  other.  In  the  social  circle  this  characteristic 
had  full  play.  I  never  knew  him  to  sit  down  with  a 
friend  for  a  five  minutes'  chat,  without  being 
"reminded"  of  one  or  more  incidents  about  somebody 
alluded  to  in  the  course  of  the  conversation.  In  a 
corner  of  his  desk  he  kept  a  copy  of  the  latest  humor 
ous  work;  and  it  was  frequently  his  habit,  when 
greatly  fatigued,  annoyed,  or  depressed,  to  take  this 
up  and  read  a  chapter,  with  great  relief. 

The  Saturday  evening  before  he  left  Washington  to 
go  to  the  front,  just  previous  to  the  capture  of  Rich 
mond,  I  was  with  him  from  seven  o'clock  till  nearly 
twelve.  It  had  been  one  of  his  most  trying  days.  The 
pressure  of  office-seekers  was  greater  at  this  juncture 
than  I  ever  knew  it  to  be,  and  he  was  almost  worn  out. 
Among  the  callers  that  evening  was  a  party  composed 
of  two  senators,  a  representative,  an  ex-lieutenant- 
governor  of  a  Western  State,  and  several  private 
citizens.  They  had  business  of  great  importance, 
involving  the  necessity  of  the  President's  examination 
of  voluminous  documents.  Pushing  everything  aside, 
he  said  to  one  of  the  party: 

"Have  you  seen  the  Nasby  papers?" 

"No,  I  have  not,"  was  the  reply;  "who  is  Nasby?" 

"There  is  a  chap  out  in  Ohio,"  returned  the  Presi 
dent,  "who  has  been  writing  a  series  of  letters  in  the 
newspapers  over  the  signature  of  Petroleum  V.  Nasby. 
Some  one  sent  me  a  pamphlet  collection  of  them  the 
other  day.  I  am  going  to  write  to  'Petroleum'  to  come 
down  here,  and  I  intend  to  tell  him  if  he  will  com- 


230  STORIES   AND   INCIDENTS. 

municate  his  talent  to  me,  I  will  swap  places  with 
him ! ' ' 

Thereupon  he  arose,  went  to  a  drawer  in  his  desk, 
and,  taking  out  the  "Letters,"  sat  down  and  read  one 
to  the  company,  finding  in  their  enjoyment  of  it  the 
temporary  excitement  and  relief  which  another  man 
would  have  found  in  a  glass  of  wine.  The  instant  he 
had  ceased,  the  book  was  thrown  aside,  his  countenance 
relapsed  into  its  habitual  serious  expression,  and  the 
business  was  entered  upon  with  the  utmost  earnest 
ness. 

Just  here,  I  may  say  with  propriety,  and  I  feel  that 
it  is  due  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  memory  to  state,  that,  dur 
ing  the  entire  period  of  my  stay  in  Washington,  after 
witnessing  his  intercourse  with  almost  all  classes  of 
people,  including  governors,  senators,  members  of  Con 
gress,  officers  of  the  army,  and  familiar  friends,  I  can 
not  recollect  to  have  ever  heard  him  relate  a 
circumstance  to  any  one  of  them  all  that  would  have 
been  out  of  place  uttered  in  a  ladies'  drawing-room! 
I  am  aware  that  a  different  impression  prevails, 
founded,  it  may  be,  in  some  instances  upon  facts;  but 
where  there  is  one  fact  of  the  kind  I  am  persuaded 
that  there  are  forty  falsehoods,  at  least.  At  any  rate, 
what  I  have  stated  is  voluntary  testimony,  from  a 
standpoint,  I  submit,  entitled  to  respectful  considera 
tion. 

Among  his  stories  freshest  in  my  mind,  one  which 
he  related  to  me  shortly  after  its  occurrence  belongs 
to  the  history  of  the  famous  interview  on  board  the 
River  Queen,  at  Hampton  Roads,  between  himself 
and  Secretary  Seward,  and  the  rebel  Peace  Commis 
sioners.  It  was  reported  at  the  time  that  the  President 


STORIES   AND   INCIDENTS.  231 

told  a  "little  story"  on  that  occasion,  and  the  inquiry 
went  around  among  the  newspapers,  "What  was  it?" 
The  New  York  Herald  published  what  purported  to  be 
a  version  of  it,  but  the  ."point"  was  entirely  lost,  and 
it  attracted  no  attention.  Being  in  Washington  a  few 
days  subsequent  to  the  interview  with  the  Commis 
sioners  (my  previous  sojourn  there  having  terminated 
about  the  first  of  last  August),  I  asked  Mr.  Lincoln, 
one  day,  if  it  was  true  that  he  told  Stephens,  Hunter, 
and  Campbell  a  story.  "Why,  yes,"  he  replied,  mani 
festing  some  surprise,  "but  has  it  leaked  out?  I  was 
in  hopes  nothing  would  be  said  about  it,  lest  some 
oversensitive  people  should  imagine  there  was  a 
degree  of  levity  in  the  intercourse  between  us. ' '  He 
then  went  on  to  relate  the  circumstances  which  called 
it  out. 

"You  see,"  said  he,  "we  had  reached  and  were  dis 
cussing  the  slavery  question.  Mr.  Hunter  said,  sub 
stantially,  that  the  slaves,  always  accustomed  to  an 
overseer,  and  to  work  upon  compulsion,  suddenly 
freed,  as  they  would  be  if  the  South  should  consent  to 
peace  on  the  basis  of  the  'Emancipation  Proclama 
tion,  '  would  precipitate  not  only  themselves,  but  the 
entire  Southern  society,  into  irremediable  ruin.  No 
work  would  be  done,  nothing  would  be  cultivated,  and 
both  blacks  and  whites  would  starve!" 

Said  the  President:  "I  waited  for  Seward  to  answer 
that  argument,  but  as  he  was  silent,  I  at  length  said : 
'Mr.  Hunter,  you  ought  to  know  a  great  deal  better 
about  this  argument  than  I,  for  you  have  always  lived 
under  the  slave  system.  I  can  only  say,  in  reply  to 
your  statement  of  the  case,  that  it  reminds  me  of  a 
man  out  in  Illinois,  by  the  name  of  Case,  who  under- 


23*  STORIES   AND   INCIDENTS. 

took,  a  few  years  ago,  to  raise  a  very  large  herd  of 
hogs.  It  was  a  great  trouble  to  feed  them,  and  how  to 
get  around  this  was  a  puzzle  to  him.  At  length  he  hit 
on  the  plan  of  planting  an  immense  field  of  potatoes, 
and,  when  they  were  sufficiently  grown,  he  turned  the 
whole  herd  into  the  field,  and  let  them  have  full  swing, 
thus  saving  not  only  the  labor  of  feeding  the  hogs,  but 
also  that  of  digging  the  potatoes !  Charmed  with  his 
sagacity,  he  stood  one  day  leaning  against  the  fence, 
counting  his  hogs,  when  a  neighbor  came  along. 
"Well,  well,"  said  he;  "Mr.  Case,  this  is  all  very  fine. 
Your  hogs  are  doing  very  well  just  now,  but  you  know 
out  here  in  Illinois  the  frost  comes  early,  and  the 
ground  freezes  for  a  foot  deep.  Then  what  are  you 
going  to  do?"  This  was  a  view  of  the  matter  which 
Mr.  Case  had  not  taken  into  account.  Butchering-time 
for  hogs  was  'way  on  in  December  or  January!  He 
scratched  his  head,  and  at  length  stammered,  "Well, 
it  may  come  pretty  hard  on  their  snouts,  but  I  don't 
see  but  that  it  will  be  'root,  hog,  or  die' !"  '  " 


IMPORTANT  LETTER  FROM  J.  WILKES  BOOTH. 

His  original  purpose  was  to  take  Mr.  Lincoln  prisoner. — His 
reasons  for  his  action. 

(From  the  Philadelphia  Press,  April  79.) 

We  have  just  received  the  following  letter,  written 
by  John  Wilkes  Booth,  and  placed  by  him  in  the  hands 
of  his  brother-in-law,  J.  S.  Clark.  It  was  written  by 
him  in  November  last,  and  left  with  J.  S.  Clark  in  a 
sealed  envelope,  and  addressed  to  himself  in  his  own 


STORIES   AND    INCIDENTS.  233 

handwriting.  In  the  same  envelope  were  some  United 
States  bonds  and  oil  stocks.  This  letter  was  opened 
by  Mr.  Clark  for  the  first  time  on  Monday  last,  and 
immediately  handed  by  him  to  Marshall  Milward,  who 
has  kindly  placed  it  in  our  hands.  Most  unmistakably 
it  proves  that  he  must  for  many  months  have  contem 
plated  seizing  the  person  of  the  late  President.  It  is, 
however,  doubtful  whether  he  imagined  the  black 
deed  which  has  plunged  the  nation  into  the  deepest 
gloom,  and  at  the  same  time  awakened  it  to  a  just  and 
righteous  indignation : 


My  Dear  Sir:  You  may  use  this- as  you  think  best. 
But  as  some  may  wish  to  know  when,  who,  and  why, 
and  as  I  do  not  know  how  to  direct  it,  I  give  it  (in  the 
words  of  your  master) : 

"TO    WHOM    IT    MAY    CONCERN." 

Right  or  wrong,  God  judge  me,  not  man.  For  be 
my  motive  good  or  bad,  of  one  thing  I  am  sure,  the 
lasting  condemnation  of  the  North. 

I  love  peace  more  than  life.  Have  loved  the  Union 
beyond  expression.  For  four  years  I  have  waited, 
hoped,  and  prayed  for  the  dark  clouds  to  break,  and 
for  a  restoration  of  our  former  sunshine.  To  wait 
longer  would  be  a  crime.  All  hope  for  peace  is  dead. 
My  prayers  have  proved  as  idle  as  my  hopes.  I  go  to 
see  and  share  the  bitter  end. 

I  have  ever  held  that  the  South  were  right.  The 
very  nomination  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  four  years  ago, 
spoke  plainly  war — war  upon  the  Southern  rights  and 
institutions.  His  election  proved  it.  "Await  an 


234  STORIES   AND    INCIDENTS. 

overt  act."  Yes;  till  you  are  bound  and  plundered 
What  folly!  The  South  were  wise.  Who  thinks  ofc 
argument  or  patience  when  the  finger  of  his  enemy 
presses  on  the  trigger?  In  a  foreign  war,  I,  too,  could 
say,  "Country,  right  or  wrong."  But  in  a  struggle 
such  as  ours  (where  the  brother  tries  to  pierce  the 
brother's  heart),  for  God's  sake  choose  the  right. 
When  a  country  like  this  spurns  justice  from  her  side, 
she  forfeits  the  allegiance  of  every  honest  freeman, 
and  should  leave  him,  untrammelled  by  any  fealty 
soever,  to  act  as  his  conscience  may  approve. 

People  of  the  North,  to  hate  tyranny,  to  love  liberty 
and  justice,  to  strike  at  wrong  and  oppression,  was 
the  teaching  of  our  fathers.  The  study  of  our 
early  history  will  not  let  me  forget  it,  and  may  it 
never. 

This  country  was  formed  for  the  white,  not  for  the 
black  man.  And,  looking  upon  African  slavery  from 
the  same  standpoint  held  by  the  noble  frarners  of  our 
Constitution,  I,  for  one,  have  ever  considered  it  one  of 
the  greatest  blessings  (both  for  themselves  and  us)  that 
God  ever  bestowed  upon  a  favored  nation.  Witness 
heretofore  our  wealth  and  power ;  witness  their  eleva 
tion  and  enlightenment  above  their  race  elsewhere. 
I  have  lived  among  it  most  of  my  life,  and  have  seen 
less  harsh  treatment  from  master  to  man  than  I  have 
beheld  in  the  North  from  father  to  son.  Yet,  heaven 
knows,  no  one  would  be  willing  to  do  more  for  the 
negro  race  than  I,  could  I  but  see  a  way  to  still  better 
their  condition. 

But  Lincoln's  policy  is  only  preparing  the  way  for 
their  total  annihilation.  The  South  are  not,  nor  have 
they  been,  fighting  for  the  continuance  of  slavery. 


STORIES   AND   INCIDENTS.  235 

The  first  battle  of  Bull  Run  did  away  with  that  idea. 
Their  causes  since  for  war  have  been  as  noble  and 
greater  far  than  those  that  urged  our  fathers  on. 
Even  should  we  allow  that  they  were  wrong  they  now 
become  the  right,  and  they  stand  (before  the  wonder 
and  admiration  of  the  world)  as  a  noble  band  of 
patriotic  heroes.  Hereafter,  reading  of  their  deeds, 
Thermopylae  will  be  forgotten. 

When  I  aided  in  the  capture  and  execution  of  John 
Brown  (who  was  a  murderer  on  our  western  border, 
and  who  was  fairly  tried  and  convicted,  before  an 
impartial  judge  and  jury,  of  treason,  and  who,  by-the- 
way,  has  since  been  made  a  god),  I  was  proud  of  my 
little  share  in  the  transaction,  for  I  deemed  it  my  duty, 
and  that  I  was  helping  our  common  country  to  per 
form  an  act  of  justice.  But  what  was  a  crime  in  poor 
John  Brown  is  now  considered  (by  themselves)  as  the 
greatest  and  only  virtue  of  the  whole  Republican 
party.  Strange  transmigration!  Vice  to  become  a 
virtue  simply  because  more  indulge  in  it! 

I  thought  then,  as  now,  that  the  Abolitionists  were 
the  only  traitors  in  the  land,  and  that  the  entire  party 
deserved  the  same  fate  as  poor  old  Brown ;  not  because 
they  wish  to  abolish  slavery,  but  on  account  of  the 
means  they  have  ever  endeavored  to  use  to  effect  that 
abolition.  If  Brown  were  living,  I  doubt  whether  he 
himself  would  set  slavery  against  the  Union.  Most, 
or  many  in  the  North  do,  and  openly  curse  the  Union 
if  the  South  are  to  return  and  retain  a  single  right, 
guaranteed  to  them  by  every  tie  which  we  once  revered 
as  sacred.  The  South  can  make  no  choice.  It  is 
either  extermination  or  slavery  for  themselves  (worse 
than  death)  to  draw  from.  I  know  my  choice. 


236  STORIES   AND    INCIDENTS. 

I  have  also  studied  hard  to  discover  upon  what 
grounds  the  right  of  a  State  to  secede  has  been  denied, 
when  our  very  name,  United  States,  and  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence,  both  provide  for  secession.  But 
there  is  no  time  for  words.  I  write  in  haste.  I  know 
how  foolish  I  shall  be  deemed  for  undertaking  such  a 
step  as  this,  where,  on  one  side,  I  have  many  friends 
and  everything  to  make  me  happy,  where  my  profes 
sion  alone  has  gained  me  an  income  of  more  than 
twenty  thousand  dollars  a  year,  and  where  my  great 
personal  ambition  in  my  profession  has  such  a  great 
field  for  labor.  On  the  other  hand,  the  South  has 
never  bestowed  upon  me  one  kind  word;  a  place  now 
where  I  have  no  friends,  except  beneath  the  sod;  a 
place  where  I  must  either  become  a  private  soldier  or 
a  beggar.  To  give  up  all  of  the  former  for  the  latter, 
besides  my  'mother  and  sisters,  whom  I  love  so  dearly 
(although  they  so  widely  differ  from  me  in  opinion), 
seems  insane;  but  God  is  my  judge.  I  love  justice 
more  than  I  do  a  country  that  disowns  it ;  more  than 
fame  and  wealth;  more,  (Heaven  pardon  me  if 
wrong),  more  than  a  happy  home.  I  have  never  been 
upon  a  battle-field;  but  oh!  my  countrymen,  could  you 
all  but  see  the  reality  or  effects  of  this  horrid  war  as  I 
have  seen  them  (in  every  State,  save  Virginia),  I  know 
you  would  think,  like  me,  and  would  pray  the  Almighty 
to  create  in  the  Northern  mind  a  sense  of  right  and 
justice  (even  should  it  possess  no  seasoning  of  mercy), 
and  that  He  would  dry  up  this  sea  of  blood  between  us, 
which  is  daily  growing  wider.  Alas,  poor  country!  is 
she  to  meet  her  threatened  doom?  Four  years  ago  I 
would  have  given  a  thousand  lives  to  see  her  remain 
(:is  I  had  always  known  her)  powerful  and  unbroken. 


STORIES   AND   INCIDENTS.  237 

And  even  now  I  would  hold  my  life  as  naught  to  see 
her  what  she  was.  Oh,  my  friends,  if  the  fearful 
scenes  of  the  past  four  years  had  never  been  enacted, 
or  if  what  has  been  had  been  but  a  frightful  dream, 
from  which  we  could  now  awake,  with  what  overflow 
ing  hearts  we  could  bless  our  God  and  pray  for  His  con 
tinued  favor!  How  I  have  loved  the  old  flag  can  never 
now  be  known.  A  few  years  since,  and  the  entire 
world  could  boast  of  none  so  pure  and  spotless.  But 
I  have  of  late  been  seeing  and  hearing  of  the  bloody 
deeds  of  which  she  has  been  made  the  emblem,  and 
would  shudder  to  think  how  changed  she  had  grown. 
Oh,  how  I  have  longed  to  see  her  break  from  the  mist 
of  blood  and  death  that  circles  round  her  folds,  spoil 
ing  her  beauty  and  tarnishing  her  honor!  But,  no, 
day  by  day  has  she  been  dragged  deeper  and  deeper 
into  cruelty  and  oppression,  till  now  (in  my  eyes)  her 
once  bright  red  stripes  look  like  bloody  gashes  on  the 
face  of  heaven.  I  look  now  upon  my  early  admiration 
of  her  glories  as  a  dream.  My  love  (as  things  stand 
to-day)  is  for  the  South  alone.  Nor  do  I  deem  it  a  dis 
honor  in  attempting  to  make  for  her  a  prisoner  of  this 
man,  to  whom  she  owes  so  much  of  misery.  If  suc 
cess  attend  me,  I  go  penniless  to  her  side.  They  say 
she  has  found  that  "last  ditch"  which  the  North  have 
so  long  derided  and  been  endeavoring  to  force  her  in, 
forgetting  they  are  our  brothers,  and  that  it  is  impoli 
tic  to  goad  an  enemy  to  madness.  Should  I  reach  her 
in  safety,  and  find  it  true,  I  will  proudly  beg  permis 
sion  to  triumph  or  die  in  that  same  "ditch"  by  her 
side. 

A  Confederate  doing  duty  upon  his  own  responsi 
bility,  J.  WILKES  BOOTH. 


238  STORIES   AND   INCIDENTS. 

WALT  WHITMAN'S  VIVID  DESCRIPTION  OF  LIN- 
COLN'S  ASSASSINATION. 

The  day  (April  14,  1865)  seems  to  have  been  a 
pleasant  one  throughout  the  whole  land — the  moral 
atmosphere  pleasant,  too — the  long  storm,  so  dark,  so 
fratricidal,  full  of  blood  and  doubt  and  gloom,  over 
and  ended  at  last  by  the  sunrise  of  such  an  absolute 
national  victory,  and  utter  breaking  down  of  secession- 
ism — we  almost  doubted  our  senses !  Lee  had  capitu 
lated,  beneath  the  apple  tree  at  Appornattox.  The 
other  armies,  the  flanges  of  the  revolt,  swiftly  followed. 

And  could  it  really  be,  then?  Out  of  all  the  affairs 
of  this  world  of  woe  and  passion,  of  failure  and  disor 
der  and  dismay,  was  there  really  come  the  confirmed, 
unerring  sign  of  peace,  like  a  shaft  of  pure  light — of 
rightful  rule — of  God? 

But  I  must  not  dwell  on  accessories.  The  deed 
hastens.  The  popular  afternoon  paper,  the  little 
Evening  Star,  had  scattered  all  over  its  third  page, 
divided  among  the  advertisements  in  a  sensational 
manner  in  a  hundred  different  places : 

"The  President  and  his  lady  will  be  at  the  theater 
this  evening." 

Lincoln  was  fond  of  the  theater.  I  have  myself  seen 
him  there  several  times.  I  remember  thinking  how 
funny  it  was  that  he,  the  leading  actor  in  the  greatest 
and  stormiest  drama  known  to  real  history's  stage, 
through  centuries,  should  sit  there  and  be  so  com 
pletely  interested  in  those  human  jackstraws,  moving 
about  with  their  silly  little  gestures,  foreign  spirit,  and* 
flatulent  text. 

So  the  day,  as  I  say,  was  propitious.  Early  herbage, 
early  flowers,  were  out.  I  remember  where  I  was 


STORIES   AND   INCIDENTS. 


239 


stopping  at  the  time,  the  season  being  advanced,  there 
were  many  lilacs  in  full  bloom.  By  one  of  those 
caprices  that  enter  and  give  tinge  to  events  without 
being  a  part  of  them,  I  find  myself  always  reminded  of 
the  great  tragedy  of  this  day  by  the  sight  and  odor  of 
these  blossoms.  It  never  fails. 


HOUSE   IN  WHICH   LINCOLN    DIED,    WASHINGTON,    D.    C, 

On  this  occasion  the  theater  was  crowded,  many 
ladies  in  rich  and  gay  costumes,  officers  in  their  uni 
forms,  many  well-known  citizens,  young  folks,  the 
usual  cluster  of  gas  lights,  the  usual  magnetism  of  so 
many  people,  cheerful  with  perfumes,  music  of  violins 
and  flutes — and  over  all,  that  saturating,  that  vast, 
vague  wonder,  Victory,  the  nation's  victory,  the 
triumph  of  the  Union,  filling  the  air,  the  thought,  the 
sense,  with  exhilaration  more  than  all  the  perfumes. 


24o  STORIES   AND    INCIDENTS. 

The  President  came  betimes,  and,  with  his  wife, 
witnessed  the  play  from  the  large  stage  boxes  of  the 
second  tier,  two  thrown  into  one,  and  profusely  draped 
with  the  national  flag.  The  acts  and  scenes  of  the 
piece — one  of  those  singularly  witless  compositions 
which  have  at  the  least  the  merit  of  giving  entire 
relief  to  an  audience  engaged  in  mental  action  or  busi 
ness  excitements  and  cares  during  the  day,  as  it  makes 
not  the  slightest  call  on  either  the  moral,  emotional, 
esthetic  or  spiritual  nature — a  piece  ("Our  American 
Cousin")  in  which,  among  other  characters  so  called,  a 
Yankee,  certainly  such  a  one  as  was  never  seen,  or  at 
least  like  it  ever  seen  in  North  America,  is  introduced 
in  England,  with  a  varied  fol-de-rol  of  talk,  plot, 
scenery,  and  such  phantasmagoria  as  goes  to  make  up 
a  modern  popular  drama — had  progressed  perhaps 
through  a  couple  of  its  acts,  when,  in  the  midst  of  this 
comedy,  or  tragedy,  or  non-such,  or  whatever  it  is  to 
be  called,  and  to  offset  it,  or  finish  it  out,  as  if  in 
Nature's  and  the  Great  Muse's  mockery  of  these 
poor  mimics,  comes  interpolated  that  scene,  not 
really  or  exactly  to  be  described  at  all  (for  on 
the  many  hundreds  who  were  there  it  seems  to  this 
hour  to  have  left  little  but  a  passing  blur,  a  dream,  a 
blotch) — and  yet  partially  described  as  I  now  proceed 
to  give  it: 

There  is  a  scene  in  the  play,  representing  the  mod 
ern  parlor,  in  which  two  unprecedented  ladies  are 
informed  by  the  unprecedented  and  impossible  Yankee 
that  he  is  not  a  man  of  fortune,  and  therefore  undesir 
able  for  marriage-catching  purposes ;  after  which,  the 
comments  being  finished,  the  dramatic  trio  make  exit, 
leaving  the  stage  clear  for  a  moment. 


STORIES   AND   INCIDENTS.  241 

There  was  a  pause,  a  hush,  as  it  were.  At  this 
period  came  the  death  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

Great  as  that  was,  with  all  its  manifold  train 
circling  around  it,  and  stretching  into  the  future  for 
many  a  century,  in  the  politics,  history,  art,  etc.,  of 
the  New  World,  in  point  of  fact,  the  main  thing,  the 
actual  murder,  transpired  with  the  quiet  and  simplicity 
of  any  commonest  occurrence — the  bursting  of  a  bud 
or  pod  in  the  growth  of  vegetation,  for  instance. 

Through  the  general  hum  following  the  stage  pause, 
with  the  change  of  positions,  etc.,  came  the  muffled 
sound  of  a  pistol  shot,  which  not  one-hundredth  part 
of  the  audience  heard  at  the  time — and  yet  a  moment's 
hush — somehow,  surely  a  vague,  startled  thrill — and 
then,  through  the  ornamented,  draperied,  starred  and 
striped  space-way  of  the  President's  box,  a  sudden 
figure,  a  man,  raises  himself  with  hands  and  feet, 
stands  a  moment  on  the  railing,  leaps  below  to  the 
stage  (a  distance,  perhaps,  of  fourteen  or  fifteen  feet), 
falls  out  of  position,  catching  his  boot-heel  in  the 
copious  drapery  (the  American  flag),  falls  on  one  knee, 
quickly  recovera  himself,  rises  as  if  nothing  had  hap 
pened  (he  really  sprains  his  ankle,  unfelt  then) — and 
the  figure,  Booth,  the  murderer,  dressed  in  plain  black 
broadcloth,  bareheaded,  with  a  full  head  of  glossy, 
raven  hair,  and  his  eyes,  like  some  mad  animal's,  flash 
ing  with  light  and  resolution,  yet  with  a  certain  strange 
calmness,  holds  aloft  in  one  hand  a  large  knife — walks 
along  not  much  back  of  the  footlights — turns  fully 
towards  the  audience  his  face  of  statuesque  beauty,  lit 
by  those  basilisk  eyes,  flashing  with  desperation,  per 
haps  insanity — launches  out  in  a  firm  and  steady  voice 
the  words,  "Sic  semper  tyrannis" — and  then  walks 


242 


STORIES   AND   INCIDENTS. 


with  neither  slow  nor  very  rapid  pace  diagonally  across 
to  the  back  of  the  stage,  and  disappears. 

(Had  not  all  this  terrible  scene — making  the  mimic 
ones  preposterous — had  it  not  all  been  rehearsed,  in 
blank,  by  Booth,  beforehand?) 

A  moment's  hush,  incredulous — a  scream — a  cry  of 
murder — Mrs.  Lincoln  leaning  out  of  the  box,  with 


LINCOLN'S  DEATH. 

ashy  cheeks  and  lips,  with  involuntary  cry,  pointing  to 
the  retreating  figure,  "He  has  killed  the  President!" 
And  still  a  moment's  strange,  incredulous  suspense 
— and  then  the  deluge! — then  that  mixture  of  horror, 
noises,  uncertainty — the  sound,  somewhere  back,  of  a 
horse's  hoofs  clattering  with  speed — the  people  burst 
through  chairs  and  railings,  and  break  them  up — that 
noise  adds  to  the  queerness  of  the  scene — there  is 


STORIES   AND   INCIDENTS.  243 

inextricable  confusion  and  terror — women  faint — quite 
feeble  persons  fall,  and  are  trampled  on—- many  cries 
of  agony  are  heard — the  broad  stage  suddenly  fills  to 
suffocation  with  a  dense  and  motley  crowd,  like  some 
horrible  carnival — the  audience  rush  generally  upon  it 
— at  least  the  strong  men  do — the  actors  and  actresses 
are  there  in  their  play  costumes  and  painted  faces, 
with  mortal  fright  showing  through  the  rouge — some 
trembling,  some  in  tears — the  screams  and  calls,  con 
fused  talk — redoubled,  trebled — two  or  three  manage 
to  pass  up  water  from  the  stage  to  the  President's  box, 
others  try  to  clamber  up,  etc. ,  etc. 

In  the  midst  of  all  this  the  soldiers  of  the  President's 
Guard,  with  others,  suddenly  drawn  to  the  scene, 
burst  in — some  200  altogether — they  storm  the  house, 
through  all  the  tiers,  especially  the  upper  ones — 
inflamed  with  fury,  literally  charging  the  audience 
with  fixed  bayonets,  muskets  and  pistols,  shouting, 
*  *  Clear  out !  clear  out !  you  sons  of  b ! ' ' 

Such  a  wild  scene,  or  a  suggestion  of  it  rather,  inside 
the  playhouse  that  night ! 

Outside,  too,  in  the  atmosphere  of  shock  and  craze, 
crowds  of  people  filled  with  frenzy,  ready  to  seize  any 
outlet  for  it,  came  near  committing  murder  several 
times  on  innocent  individuals. 

One  such  case  was  particularly  exciting.  The 
infuriated  crowd,  through  some  chance,  got  started 
against  one  man,  either  for  words  he  uttered,  or  per 
haps  without  any  cause  at  all,  and  were  proceeding  to 
hang  him  at  once  to  a  neighboring  lamp-post,  when  he 
was  rescued  by  a  few  heroic  policemen,  who  placed 
him  in  their  midst  and  fought  their  way  slowly  and 
amid  great  peril  toward  the  station-house. 


244  STORIES   AND   INCIDENTS. 

It  was  a  fitting  episode  of  the  whole  affair.  The 
crowd  rushing  and  eddying  to  and  fro,  the  night,  the 
yells,  the  pale  faces,  many  frightened  people  trying  in 
vain  to  extricate  themselves,  the  attacked  man,  not  yet 
freed  from  the  jaws  of  death,  looking  like  a  corpse; 
the  silent,  resolute  half-dozen  policemen,  with  no 
weapons  but  their  little  clubs;  yet  stern  and  steady 
through  all  those  eddying  swarms;  made,  indeed,  a 
fitting  side  scene  to  the  grand  tragedy  of  the  murder. 
They  gained  the  station-house  with  the  protected  man, 
whom  they  placed  in  security  for  the  night,  and  dis 
charged  in  the  morning. 

And  in  the  midst  of  that  night  pandemonium  of 
senseless  hate,  infuriated  soldiers,  the  audience  and 
the  crowd — the  stage,  and  all  its  actors  and  actresses, 
its  paint  pots,  spangles,  gas-light — the  life-blood  from 
those  veins,  the  best  and  sweetest  of  the  land,  drips 
slowly  down,  and  death's  ooze  already  begins  its  little 
bubbles  on  the  lips. 

Such,  hurriedly  sketched,  were  the  accompaniments 
of  the  death  of  President  Lincoln.  So  suddenly,  and 
in  murder  and  horror  unsurpassed,  he  was  taken  from 
us.  But  his  death  was  painless. 


REWARD  OFFERED  BY  SECRETARY  STANTON. 

War  Department,  Washington,  April  20,  1865. 
Maj.-Gen.  John  A.  Dix,  New  York: 

The  murderer  of  our  late  beloved  President,  Abra 
ham  Lincoln,  is  still  at  large.  Fifty  thousand  dollars 
reward  will  be  paid  by  this  Department  for  his  appre 
hension  in  addition  to  any  reward  offered  by  municipal 
authorities  or  State  Executives. 


STORIES   AND   INCIDENTS.  24$ 

Twenty-five  thousand  dollars  reward  will  be  paid  for 
the  apprehension  of  G.  A.  Atzerodt,  sometimes  called 
"Port  Tobacco,"  one  of  Booth's  accomplices.  Twenty- 
five  thousand  dollars  reward  will  be  paid  for  the  appre 
hension  of  David  C.  Harold,  another  of  Booth's 
accomplices.  A  liberal  reward  will  be  paid  for  any 
information  that  shall  conduce  to  the  arrest  of  either 
the  above-named  criminals  or  their  accomplices.  All 
persons  harboring  or  secreting  the  said  persons,  or 
either  of  them,  or  aiding  or  assisting  their  concealment 
or  escape,  will  be  treated  as  accomplices  in  the  murder 
of  the  President  and  the  attempted  assassination  of 
the  Secretary  of  State,  and  shall  be  subject  to  trial 
before  a  military  commission,  and  the  punishment  of 
death. 

Let  the  stain  of  innocent  blood  be  removed  from  the 
land  by  the  arrest  and  punishment  of  the  murderers. 

All  good  citizens  are  exhorted  to  aid  public  justice 
on  this  occasion.  .  Every  man  should  consider  his  own 
conscience  charged  with  this  solemn  duty,  and  rest 
neither  night  nor  day  until  it  be  accomplished. 

EDWIN  M.  STANTON,  Secretary  of  War. 


INDICTMENT  OF  THE  CONSPIRATORS— CHARGES  AND 
SPECIFICATIONS. 

The  following  is  a  copy  of  the  charges  and  specifica 
tions  against  David  E.  Harold,  George  A.  Atzerodt, 
Lewis  Payne,  Michael  O'Laughlin,  John  H.  Surratt, 
Edward  Spangler,  Samuel  Arnold,  Mary  E.  Surratt, 
and  Samuel  Mudd: 

Charge  ist. — For  maliciously,  unlawfully,  and  traitor 
ously,  and  in  aid  of  the  existing  armed  rebellion  against 


246  STORIES   AND    INCIDENTS. 

the  United  States  of  America,  on  or  before  the  6th  day 
of  March,  A.  D.  1865,  and  on  divers  other  days 
between  that  day  and  the  i5th  day  of  April,  1865,  com 
bining,  confederating,  and  conspiring  together  with 
one  John  H.  Surratt,  John  Wilkes  Booth,  Jefferson 
Davis,  George  N.  Saunders,  Beverley  Tucker,  Jacob 
Thompson,  William  C.  Cleary,  Clement  C.  Clay, 
George  Harper,  George  Young,  and  others  unknown, 
to  kill  and  murder  within  the  Military  Department  of 
Washington,  and  within  the  fortified  and  intrenched 
lines  thereof,  Abraham  Lincoln,  who,  at  the  time 
of  said  combining,  confederating,  and  conspiring, 
was  President  of  the  United  States  of  America  and 
Commander-in-chief  of  the  Army  and  Navy  thereof; 
Andrew  Johnson,  now  Vice-President  of  the  United 
States  as  aforesaid,  William  H.  Seward,  Secretary  of 
State  of  the  United  States  aforesaid,  and  Ulysses  S. 
Grant,  Lieutenant-General  of  the  Army  of  the  United 
States  aforesaid,  then  in  command  of  the  armies  of  the 
United  States, under  the  direction  of  the  said  Abraham 
Lincoln,  and  in  pursuance  of,  and  in  prosecuting  said 
malicious, unlawful,  and  traitorous  conspiracy  aforesaid, 
and  in  aid  of  said  rebellion,  afterwards,  to-wit :  On  the 
i4th  day  of  April,  1865,  within  the  Military  Department 
of  Washington  aforesaid,  and  within  the  fortified  and 
intrenched  lines  of  said  Military  Department,  together 
with  said  John  Wilkes  Booth  and  John  H.  Surratt, 
maliciously,  unlawfully,  and  traitorously  murdering 
the  said  Abraham  Lincoln,  then  President  of  the 
United  States,  and  Commander-in-chief  of  the  Army 
and  Navy  of  the  United  States,  as  aforesaid,  and  ma 
liciously,  unlawfully,  and  traitorously  assaulting,  with 
intent  to  kill  and  murder,  the  said  William  H.  Seward, 


STORIES   AND   INCIDENTS.  247 

then  Secretary  of  State  of  the  United  States  as  afore 
said,  and  lying  in  wait  with  intent,  maliciously,  unlaw 
fully,  and  traitorously,  to  kill  and  murder  the  said 
Andrew  Johnson,  then  being  Vice-President  of  the 
United  States,  and  the  said  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  then 
being  Lieutenant-General  and  in  command  of  the 
armies  of  the  United  States  aforesaid. 

Specification  ist. — In  this  that  they,  the  said  David 
E.  Harold,  Edward  Spangler,  Lewis  Payne,  John  H. 
Surratt,  Michael  O'Laughlin,  Samuel  Arnold,  Mary  E. 
Surratt,  George  A.  Atzerodt,  and  Samuel  A.  Mudd, 
incited  and  encouraged  thereunto  by  Jefferson  Davis, 
George  N.  Saunders,  Beverley  Tucker,  Jacob  Thomp 
son,  William  C.  Cleary,  Clement  C.  Clay,  George 
Harper,  George  Young,  and  others  unknown,  citizens 
of  the  United  States  aforesaid,  and  who  were  then 
engaged  in  armed  rebellion  against  the  United  States 
of  America,  within  the  limits  thereof,  did,  in  aid  of 
said  armed  rebellion,  on  or  before  the  6th  day  of 
March,  A.  D.  1865,  and  on  divers  other  days  and 
times  between  that  day  and  the  i5th  day  of  April, 
A.  D.  1865,  combine,  confederate,  and  conspire 
together  at  Washington  City,  within  the  Military 
Department  of  Washington,  and  within  the  intrenched 
fortifications  and  military  lines  of  the  said  United 
States,  there  being,  unlawfully,  maliciously,  and 
traitorously,  to  kill  and  murder  Abraham  Lincoln, 
then  President  of  the  United  States  aforesaid,  and 
Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Army  and  Navy  thereof, 
and  unlawfully,  maliciously,  and  traitorously,  to  kill 
and  murder  Andrew  Johnson,  now  Vice-President  of 
the  said  United  States,  upon  whom,  on  the  death  of 
said  Abraham  Lincoln,  after  the  4th  day  of  March, 


*48  STORIES   AND   INCIDENTS. 

A.  D.  1865,  the  office  of  President  of  the  said  United 
States,  and  the  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Army  and 
Navy  thereof,  would  devolve,  and  to  unlawfully, 
maliciously,  and  traitorously  kill  and  murder  Ulysses 
S.  Grant,  then  Lieutenant-General,  and  under  the 
direction  of  the  said  Abraham  Lincoln,  in  command  of 
the  armies  of  the  United  States  aforesaid,  and  unlaw 
fully,  maliciously,  and  traitorously  to  kill  and  murder 
William  H.  Seward,  then  Secretary  of  State  of  the 
United  States  aforesaid,  whose  duty  it  was  by  law, 
upon  the  death  of  said  President  and  Vice-President  of 
the  United  States  aforesaid,  to  cause  an  election  to  be 
held  for  electors  of  President  of  the  United  States ; 
the  conspirators  aforesaid  designing  and  intending  by 
the  killing  and  murder  of  the  said  Abraham  Lincoln, 
Andrew  Johnson,  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  and  William  H. 
Seward  as  aforesaid,  to  deprive  the  Army  and  Navy  of 
the  said  United  States  of  a  Constitutional  Commander- 
in-Chief,  and  to  deprive  the  armies  of  the  United  States 
of  their  lawful  commander,  and  to  prevent  a  lawful 
election  of  President  and  Vice-President  of  the  United 
States,  aforesaid ;  and  by  the  means  aforesaid  to  aid  and 
comfort  the  insurgents  engaged  in  armed  rebellion 
against  the  said  United  States  as  aforesaid,  and  thereby 
aid  in  the  subversion  and  overthrow  of  the  Constitution 
and  the  laws  of  the  United  States ;  and  being  so  com 
bined,  confederated,  and  conspiring  together  in  the  pros 
ecution  of  said  unlawful  and  traitorous  conspiracy  on 
the  night  of  the  i4th  day  of  April,  A.  D.  1865,  at  the 
hour  of  about  ten  o'clock  and  fifteen  minutes  p.  m. ,  at 
Ford's  Theater,  on  Tenth  Street,  in  the  City  of  Wash 
ington,  and  within  the  Military  Department  and  mili 
tary  lines  aforesaid,  John  Wilkes  Booth,  one  of  the 


STORIES   AND   INCIDENTS.  249 

conspirators  aforesaid,  in  pursuance  of  said  unlawful 
and  traitorous  conspiracy,  did  then  and  there,  un 
lawfully,  maliciously,  and  traitorously,  and  with 
intent  to  kill  and  murder  the  said  Abraham  Lincoln, 
discharge  a  pistol  then  held  in  the  hands  of  him, 
the  said  Booth,  the  same  being  then  loaded  with 
powder  and  leaden  ball,  against  and  upon  the  left 
and  posterior  side  of  the  head  of  the  said  Abraham 
Lincoln,  and  did  thereby  then  and  there  inflict  upon 
him,  the  said  Abraham  Lincoln,  then  President  of 
the  said  United  States,  and  Commander-in-Chief 
of  the  Army  and  Navy  thereof,  a  mortal  wound, 
whereof  afterwards,  to-wit:  on  the  i5th  day  of  April, 
A.  D.  1865,  at  Washington  City  aforesaid,  the  said 
Abraham  Lincoln  died,  and  thereby  then  and  there, 
and  in  pursuance  of  said  conspiracy,  the  said  defend 
ant  and  the  said  John  Wilkes  Booth  did  unlaw 
fully,  traitorously,  and  maliciously,  with  the  intent 
to  aid  the  rebellion,  as  aforesaid,  kill  and  murder 
the  said  Abraham  Lincoln,  President  of  the  United 
States,  as  aforesaid,  and  in  further  prosecution 
of  the  unlawful  and  traitorous  conspiracy  afore 
said,  and  of  the  murderous  and  traitorous  intent 
of  said  conspiracy,  the  said  Edward  Spangler,  on 
the  said  i4th  day  of  April,  A.  D.  1865,  at  about  the 
same  hour  of  that  day,  as  aforesaid,  within  said  Mili 
tary  Department  and  military  lines  aforesaid,  did  aid 
and  assist  the  said  John  Wilkes  Booth  to  obtain  an 
entrance  to  the  box  in  the  said  theater  in  which  the 
said  Abraham  Lincoln  was  sitting  at  the  time  he  was 
assaulted  and  shot  as  aforesaid  by  John  Wilkes  Booth ; 
arid  also  did  then  and  there  aid  said  Booth  in  barring 
and  obstructing  the  door  of  the  box  of  said  theater  so 


250  STORIES   AND   INCIDENTS. 

as  to  hinder  and  prevent  any  assistance  to  or  rescue  of 
the  said  Abraham  Lincoln,  against  the  murderous 
assault  of  the  said  John  Wilkes  Booth,  and  did  aid  and 
abet  him  in  making  his  escape  after  the  said  Abraham 
Lincoln  had  been  murdered  in  the  manner  aforesaid: 
and  in  further  prosecution  of  said  unlawful,  murder 
ous,  and  traitorous  conspiracy,  and  in  pursuance  there 
of  and  with  the  intent  as  aforesaid,  the  said  David  E. 
Harold  did,  on  the  i4th  day  of  April,  A.  D.  1865, 
within  the  Military  Department  and  military  lines 
aforesaid,  aid  and  abet,  and  assist  the  said  John  Wilkes 
Booth  in  the  killing  and  murder  of  the  said  Abraham 
Lincoln,  and  did  then  and  there  aid  and  abet  and 
assist  him,  the  said  John  Wilkes  Booth,  in  attempting 
to  escape  through  the  military  lines  aforesaid,  and 
did  accompany  and  assist  the  said  John  Wilkes  Booth 
in  attempting  to  conceal  himself  and  escape  from 
justice  after  killing  and  murdering  the  said  Abraham 
Lincoln  aforesaid;  and  in  further  prosecution  of  said 
unlawful  and  traitorous  conspiracy,  and  of  the  intent 
thereof  as  aforesaid,  the  said  Lewis  Payne  did,  on  the 
same  night  of  the  i4th  day  of  April,  1865,  about  the 
same  hour  of  ten  o'clock,  fifteen  minutes  p.  m.,  at  the 
City  of  Washington,  and  within  the  Military  Depart 
ment  and  the  military  lines  aforesaid,  unlawfully  and 
maliciously  make  an  assault  upon  the  said  William  H. 
Seward,  Secretary  of  State  as  aforesaid,  in  the  dwelling- 
house  and  bed-chamber  of  him,  the  said  William  H. 
vSeward,  and  the  said  Payne  did  then  and  there,  with  a 
large  knife  held  in  his  hand,  unlawfully,  traitorously, 
and  in  pursuance  of  said  conspiracy,  strike,  stab,  cut, 
and  attempt  to  kill  and  murder  the  said  William  H. 
Seward,  and  did  thereby  then  and  there  and  with  the 


STORIES   AND    INCIDENTS.  251 

intent  aforesaid,  with  said  knife,  inflict  upon  the  face 
and  throat  of  William  H.  Seward  divers  grievous 
wounds;  and  said  Lewis  Payne,  in  further  prosecution 
of  said  conspiracy,  at  the  same  time  and  place  last 
aforesaid,  did  attempt,  with  the  knife  aforesaid,  and  a 
pistol,  held  in  his  hand,  to  kill  and  murder  Frederick 
W.  Seward,  Augustus  H.  Seward,  Emrick  W.  Hansel, 
and  George  F.  Robinson,  who  were  then  striving  to  pro 
tect  and  rescue  the  said  William  H.  Seward  from  being 
murdered  by  the  said  Lewis  Payne,  and  did  then  and 
there,  with  the  said  knife  and  pistols  held  in  his  hands, 
inflict  upon  the  head  of  said  Frederick  W.  Seward, 
and  upon  the  persons  of  said  Augustus  H.  Seward, 
Emrick  W.  Hansel,  and  George  F.  Robinson,  divers 
grievous  and  dangerous  wounds,  and  with  intent 
then  and  there  to  kill  and  murder  the  said  Frederick 
W.  Seward,  Augustus  H.  Seward,  Emrick  W.  Hansel, 
and  George  F.  Robinson. 

And  in  further  prosecution  of  said  conspiracy,  and 
its  traitorous  and  murderous  designs,  the  said  George 
A.  Atzerodt  did,  on  the  night  of  the  i4th  of  April,  A.  D. 
1865,  and  about  the  same  hour  aforesaid,  within  the 
Military  Department  and  military  lines  aforesaid,  lie 
in  wait  for  Andrew  Johnson,  then  Vice-President  of 
the  United  States,  aforesaid,  with  the  intent  unlaw 
fully  and  maliciously  to  kill  and  murder  him,  the  said 
Andrew  Johnson. 

And  in  further  prosecution  of  the  conspiracy  afore 
said,  and  of  its  murderous  and  treasonable  purpose 
aforesaid,  on  the  nights  of  the  i3th  and  i4th  of  April, 
A.  D.  1865,  at  Washington  City,  and  within  the  mili 
tary  department  and  military  lines  aforesaid,  the  said 
Michael  O'Laughlin  did  then  and  there  lie  in  wait  for 


252  STORIES  AND   INCIDENTS. 

Ulysses  S.  Grant,  then  Lieutenant-General  and  Com 
mander  of  the  armies  of  the  United  States  as  afore 
said,  with  intent  then  and  there  to  kill  and  murder 
the  said  Ulysses  S.  Grant. 

And  in  further  prosecution  of  said  conspiracy,  the 
said  Samuel  Arnold  did,  within  the  Military  Depart 
ment  and  military  lines  aforesaid,  on  or  before  the  6th 
day  of  March,  A.  D.  1865,  and  on  divers  other  days 
and  times  between  that  day  and  the  i5th  day  of  April, 
A.  D.  1865,  combine,  conspire  with,  and  aid,  counsel, 
abet,  comfort,  and  support  the  said  John  Wilkes  Booth, 
Lewis  Payne,  George  A.  Atzerodt,  Michael  O'Laugh- 
lin,  and  their  confederates,  in  said  unlawful,  murder 
ous,  and  traitorous  conspiracy,  and  in  the  execution  of 
as  aforesaid. 

And,  in  further  prosecution  of  the  said  conspiracy, 
Mary  E.  Surratt  did  at  Washington  City,  and  within 
the  Military  Department  and  military  lines  aforesaid, 
on  or  before  the  6th  day  of  March,  A.  D.  1865,  and  on 
divers  other  days  and  times  between  that  day  and  the 
3oth  day  of  April,  A.  D.  1865,  receive,  entertain,  har 
bor  and  conceal,  aid  and  assist  the  said  John  Wilkes 
Booth,  David  E.  Harold,  Lewis  Payne,  John  H.  Sur^ 
ratt,  Michael  O'Laughlin,  George  A.  Atzerodt,  Samuel 
Arnold,  and  their  confederates,  with  knowledge  of  the 
murderous  and  traitorous  conspiracy  aforesaid,  and 
with  intent  to  aid,  abet,  and  assist  them  in  the  execu 
tion  thereof,  and  in  escaping  from  justice  after  the 
murder  of  the  said  Abraham  Lincoln,  as  aforesaid; 
and  in  further  prosecution  of  said  conspiracy,  the  said 
Samuel  A.  Mudd  did,  at  Washington  City,  and  within 
the  Military  Department  and  military  lines  aforesaid, 
on  or  before  the  6th  day  of  March,  A.  D.  1865,  and  on 


STORIES   AND   INCIDENTS.  253 

divers  other  days  and  times  between  that  day  and  the 
2oth  day  of  April,  A.  D.  1865,  advise,  encourage, 
receive,  entertain,  harbor,  and  conceal,  aid,  and  assist 
the  said  John  Wilkes  Booth,  David  E.  Harold,  Lewis 
Payne,  John  H.  Surratt,  Michael  O'Langhlin,  George 
A.  Atzerodt,  Mary  E.  Surratt,  and  Samuel  Arnold, 
and  their  confederates,  with  knowledge  of  the  murder 
ous  and  traitorous  conspiracy  aforesaid,  and  with  intent 
to  aid,  abet,  and  assist  them  in  the  execution  thereof, 
and  in  escaping-  from  justice  after  the  murder  of  the 
said  Abraham  Lincoln,  in  pursuance  of  said  conspiracy 
in  manner  aforesaid. 

By  order  of  the  President  of  the  United  States. 

J.  HOLT,  Judge-Advocate-GeneraL 


Lincoln's  Letters. 


LETTER  TO  MRS.  ARMSTRONG. 

Springfield,  111.,  Sept.  — ,  18 — . 

Dear  Mrs.  Armstrong:  I  have  just  heard  of  your 
deep  affliction,  and  the  arrest  of  your  son  for  murder. 

I  can  hardly  believe  that  he  can  be  guilty  of  the 
crime  alleged  against  him. 

It  does  not  seem  possible.  I  am  anxious  that  he 
should  have  a  fair  trial,  at  any  rate ;  and  gratitude  for 
your  long-continued  kindness  to  me  in  adverse  circum 
stances  prompts  me  to  offer  my  humble  services  gratu 
itously  in  his  behalf. 

It  will  afford  me  an  opportunity  to  requite,  in  a  small 
degree,  the  favors  I  received  at  your  hand,  and  that  of 
your  lamented  husband,  when  your  roof  afforded  me 
grateful  shelter,  without  money  and  without  price. 

Yours  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

AFFECTIONATE  SON. 

Lincoln  wrote  the  following  at  the  close  of  a  letter  to 
his  step-brother,  John  Johnston,  regarding  his  father, 
Mr.  Lincoln,  the  poor  ne'er-do-well,  who  was  ill: 

"I  sincerely  hope  father  may  yet  recover  his  health; 
but  at  all  events,  tell  him  to  remember  to  call  upon, 

254 


LINCOLN'S   LETTERS.  255 

and  com  Je  in,  our  great  and  good  merciful  Maker, 
who  will  not  turn  away  from  him  in  any  extremity. 

"He  notes  the  fall  of  the  sparrow,  and  numbers  the 
hairs  of  our  heads,  and  He  will  not  forget  the  dying 
man  who  puts  his  trust  in  Him. 

"Say  to  him  that,  if  we  could  meet  now,  it  is  doubtful 
whether  it  would  not  be  more  painful  than  pleasant, 
but  that  if  it  is  his  lot  to  go  now,  he  will  soon  have  a 
joyful  meeting  with  loved  ones  gone  before,  and  where 
the  rest  of  us,  through  the  mercy  of  God,  hope  ere  long 
to  join  them." 

LINCOLN  WRITES  HIS  STEP-MOTHER. 

Lincoln's  love  for  his  second  mother  was  most  filial 
and  affectionate.  In  a  letter  of  November  4,  1851, 
just  after  the  death  of  his  father,  he  writes  to  her  as 
follows: 

"Dear  Mother:  Chapman  tells  me  that  he  wants  you 
to  go  and  live  with  him.  If  I  were  you,  I  would  try  it 
a  while.  If  you  get  tired  of  it  (as  I  think  you  will 
not),  you  can  return  to  your  own  home.  Chapman 
feels  very  kindly  to  you,  and  I  have  no  doubt  he  will 
make  your  situation  very  pleasant. 

"Sincerely  your  son, 

"A.  LINCOLN." 


LINCOLN'S  IDEA  OF  THE  SLAVERY  CONFLICT  IN  1855. 

Springfield,  111.,  August  15,  1855. 
Hon.  George  Robertson,  Lexington,  Ky. 

My  Dear  Sir:  The  volume  you  left  for  me  has  been 
received.  I  am  really  grateful  for  the  honor  of  your 
kind  remembrance,  as  well  as  for  the  book. 


256  LINCOLN'S  LETTERS 

The  partial  reading  I  have  already  given  it  has 
afforded  me  much  of  both  pleasure  and  instruction. 
It  was  new  to  me  that  the  exact  question  which  led  to 
the  Missouri  Compromise  had  arisen  before  it  arose  in 
regard  to  Missouri,  and  that  you  had  taken  so  prom 
inent  a  part  in  it.  Your  short  but  able  and  patriotic 
speech  on  that  occasion  has  not  been  improved  upon 
since  by  those  holding  the  same  views ;  and  with  all 
the  light  you  then  had,  the  views  you  took  appear  to 
me  as  very  reasonable. 

You  are  not  a  friend  of  slavery  in  the  abstract.  In 
that  speech  you  spoke  of  the  "peaceful  extinction  of 
slavery, ' '  and  used  other  expressions  indicating  your 
belief  that  the  thing  was,  at  some  time,  to  have  an  end. 
Since  then  we  have  had  thirty-six  years  of  experience ; 
and  this  experience  has  demonstrated,  I  think,  that 
there  is  no  peaceful  extinction  of  slavery  in  prospect 
for  us. 

The  signal  failure  of  Henry  Clay  and  other  good  and 
great  men,  in  1849,  to  effect  anything  in  favor  of  a 
gradual  emancipation  in  Kentucky,  together  with  a 
thousand  other  signs,  extinguished  that  hope  utterly. 
On  the  question  of  liberty,  as  a  principle,  we  are  not 
what  we  have  been. 

When  we  were  the  political  slaves  of  King  George, 
and  wanted  to  be  free,  we  called  the  maxim  that  "all 
men  are  created  equal"  a  self-evident  truth,  but  now, 
when  we  have  grown  fat,  and  have  lost  all  dread  of 
being  slaves  ourselves,  we  have  become  so  greedy  to  be 
masters  that  we  call  the  same  maxim  a ' '  self-evident  lie. ' ' 

The  Fourth  of  July  has  not  quite  dwindled  away ;  it 
is  still  a  great  day  for  burning  firecrackers ! 

That  spirit  which  desired  the  peaceful  extinction  of 


LINCOLN'S  LETTERS.  257 

slavery  has  itself  become  extinct  with  the  occasion  and 
the  men  of  the  Revolution.  Under  the  impulse  of  that 
occasion,  nearly  half  the  States  adopted  systems  of 
emancipation  at  once ;  and  it  is  a  significant  fact  that 
not  a  single  State  has  done  the  like  since. 

So  far  as  peaceful,  voluntary  emancipation  is  con 
cerned,  the  condition  of  the  negro  slave  in  America, 
scarcely  less  terrible  to  the  contemplation  of  a  free  mind, 
is  now  as  fixed  and  hopeless  of  change  for  the  better 
as  that  of  the  lost  souls  of  the  finally  impenitent.  The 
Autocrat  of  all  the  Russians  will  resign  his  crown  and 
proclaim  his  subjects  free  republicans  sooner  than  will 
our  American  masters  voluntarily  give  up  their  slaves. 

Our  political  problem  now  is,  "Can  we,  as  a  nation, 
continue  together  permanently — forever — half  slave 
and  half  free?" 

The  problem  is  too  mighty  for  me.  May  God,  in  His 
mercy,  superintend  the  solution. 

Your  much  obliged  friend,  and  humble  servant, 

A.   LINCOLN. 

Springfield,  III.,  April  6,  1859. 

Gentlemen:  Your  kind  note  inviting  me  to  attend  a 
festival  in  Boston  on  the  i3th  instant,  in  honor  of  the 
birthday  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  was  duly  received.  My 
engagements  are  such  that  I  cannot  attend. 

The  Democracy  of  to-day  hold  the  liberty  of  one 
man  to  be  absolutely  nothing,  when  in  conflict  with 
another  man's  right  of  property.  Republicans,  on  the 
contrary,  are  both  for  the  man  and  the  dollar,  but,  in 
case  of  conflict,  the  man  before  the  dollar. 

I  remember  once  being  much  amused  at  seeing  two 
partially  intoxicated  men  engaged  in  a  fight  with  their 


258  LINCOLN'S  LETTERS. 

great-coats  on,  which  fight,  after  a  long  and  rather 
harmless  contest,  ended  in  each  having  fought  himself 
out  of  his  own  coat,  and  into  that  of  the  other.  If  the 
two  leading  parties  of  this  day  are  really  identical 
with  the  two  in  the  days  of  Jefferson  and  Adams,  they 
have  performed  the  same  feat  as  the  two  drunken  men. 

But,  soberly,  it  is  now  no  child's  play  to  save  the 
principles  of  Jefferson  from  total  overthrow  in  this 
nation.  .  .  .  This  is  a  world  of  compensations ;  and 
he  who  would  be  no  slave  must  consent  to  have  no 
slave.  Those  who  deny  freedom  to  others  deserve  it 
not  for  themselves;  and,  under  a  just  God,  cannot  long 
retain  it. 

All  honor  to  Jefferson ;  to  a  man  who,  in  the  concrete 
pressure  of  a  struggle  for  national  independence  by  a 
single  people,  had  the  coolness,  forecast,  and  capacity 
to  introduce  into  a  merely  revolutionary  document  an 
abstract  truth,  applicable  to  all  men  and  all  times,  and 
so  to  embalm  it  there  that  to-day  and  in  all  coming 
days  it  shall  be  a  rebuke  and  stumbling-block  to  the 
harbingers  of  reappearing  tyranny  and  oppression. 
Your  obedient  servant, 

A.   LINCOLN. 

Messrs.  H.  L.  Pierce,  and  others,  etc. 


LINCOLN'S  FIRST  LETTER  OF  ACCEPTANCE. 

Springfield,  111.,  May  25,  1860. 
Hon.   George    Ashman,   President  of  the  Republican 

National  Convention. 

Sir:  I  accept  the  nomination  tendered  me  by  the 
Convention  over  which  you  preside,  and  of  which  I  am 
"formally  apprised  in  the  letter  of  yourself  and  others, 


LINCOLN'S  LETTERS,  259 

acting  as  a  committee  of  the  Convention  for  that  pur 
pose. 

The  declaration  of  principles  and  sentiments,  which 
accompanies  your  letter,  meets  my  approval;  and  it 
shall  be  my  care  not  to  violate  or  disregard  it  in  any 
part.  Imploring  the  assistance  of  Divine  Providence, 
and  with  due  regard  to  the  views  and  feelings  of  all 
who  were  represented  in  the  Convention ;  to  the  rights 
of  all  the  States  and  Territories  and  people  of  the 
nation;  to  the  inviolability  of  the  Constitution;  and 
the  perpetual  union,  harmony  and  prosperity  of  all, 
I  am  now  happy  to  co-operate  for  the  practical  success 
of  the  principles  declared  by  the  Convention. 

Your  obliged  friend,  and  fellow  citizen, 

A.   LINCOLN. 

MR.  LINCOLN'S  REPLY  TO  THE  POET,  BRYANT. 

Springfield,  111.,  June  28,  1860. 

Please  accept  my  thanks  for  the  honor  done  me  by 
your  kind  letter  of  the  i6th.  I  appreciate  the  danger 
against  which  you  would  guard  me ;  nor  am  I  wanting 
in  the  purpose  to  avoid  it.  I  thank  you  for  the  addi 
tional  strength  your  words  give  me  to  maintain  that 
purpose.  Your  friend  and  servant, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

LETTER  TO  GENERAL  DUFF  GREEN. 

Springfield,  111.,  Dec.  28,  1860. 
Gen.  Duff  Green. 

My  Dear  Sir :  I  do  not  desire  any  amendment  of  the 
Constitution.  Recognizing,  however,  that  questions 
of  such  amendment  rightfully  belong  to  the  American 
people,  I  should  not  feel  justified  nor  inclined  to  with- 


260  LINCOLN'S  LETTERS. 

hold  from  them,  if  I  could,  a  fair  opportunity  of 
expressing"  their  will  thereon  through  either  of  the 
modes  prescribed  in  the  instrument. 

In  addition,  I  declare  that  the  maintenance  inviolate 
of  the  rights  of  the  States,  and  especialty  the  right  of 
each  State,  to  order  and  control  its  own  domestic  insti 
tutions,  according  to  its  own  judgment  exclusively,  is 
essential  to  the  balance  of  powers  on  which  the  per 
fection  and  endurance  of  our  political  fabric  depend ; 
and  I  denounce  the  lawless  invasion  by  armed  force  of 
the  soil  of  any  State  or  Territory,  no  matter  under 
what  protest,  as  the  gravest  of  crimes. 

I  am  greatly  averse  to  writing  anything  for  the  pub 
lic  at  this  time;  and  I  consent  to  the  publication  of 
this  only  upon  the  condition  that  six  of  the  twelve 
United  States  Senators  for  the  States  of  Georgia,  Ala 
bama,  Mississippi,  Louisiana,  Florida,  and  Texas  shall 
sign  their  names  to  what  is  written  on  this  sheet,  below 
my  name,  and  allow  the  whole  to  be  published  together- 

Yours  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


MR.  LINCOLN'S   FIRST    PUBLIC  LETTER  AFTER  HIS 
ELECTION. 

Springfield,  111.,  Jan.  28,  1861. 
Messrs.   R.    A.   Cameron,  Walter  Marsh,  and  D.   C. 

Branham,  Committee. 

Gentlemen:  I  have  the  honor  to  acknowledge  the 
receipt  by  your  hands  of  a  copy  of  a  joint  resolution 
adopted  by  the  Legislature  of  the  State  of  Indiana,  on 
the  1 5th  instant,  inviting  me  to  visit  that  honorable 
body  on  my  way  to  the  Federal  Capital. 


LINCOLN'S  LETTERS.  a6i 

Expressing  my  profound  gratitude  for  the  flattering 
testimonial  of  their  regards  and  esteem,  be  pleased  to 
bear  to  them  my  acceptance  of  their  kind  invitation, 
and  inform  them,  I  will  comply  in  accordance  with 
their  expressed  desire,  on  the  i2th  day  of  February 
next.  With  feelings  of  high  consideration,  I  remain 
your  obedient  servant, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


LINCOLN  TO  COLFAX. 

Executive  Mansion,  March  8,  1861. 
Hon.  Schuyler  Colfax. 

My  Dear  Sir:  Your  letter  of  the  6th  has  just  been 
handed  me  by  Mr.  Baker,  of  Minnesota.  When  I  said 
to  you  the  other  day  that  I  wished  to  write  you  a  letter, 
I  had  reference,  of  course,  to  my  not  having  offered 
you  a  Cabinet  appointment. 

I  meant  to  say,  and  now  do  say,  you  are  most  honor 
ably  and  amply  recommended;  and  a  tender  of  the 
appointment  was  not  withheld,  in  any  part,  because  of 
anything  happening  in  1858.  Indeed,  I  should  have 
decided  as  I  did  easier  than  I  did  had  that  matter 
never  existed.  I  had  partly  made  up  my  mind  in 
favor  of  Mr.  Smith — not  conclusively,  of  course — 
before  your  name  was  mentioned  in  that  connection. 
When  you  were  brought  forward,  I  said,  "Colfax  is  a 
young  man,  is  already  in  position,  is  running  a  brilliant 
career,  and  is  sure  of  a  bright  future  in  any  event — 
with  Smith  it  is  now  or  never." 

I  considered  either  abundantly  competent,  and 
decided  on  the  ground  I  stated. 

I  now  have  to  beg  that  you  will  not  do  me  the 


262  LINCOLN'S   LETTERS. 

injustice  to  suppose  for  a  moment  that  I  remember 
anything  against  you  in  malice. 

Yours  very  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

LINCOLN  TO  SEWARD. 

The  Secretary  of  State  considered  it  his  duty  to  urge 
the  President  to  more  energetic  action,  April,  '61,  and 
presented  his  ideas  under  the  following  head,  "Some 
Thoughts  for  the  President's  Consideration,  April  i, 
1861" 

*4 First,  we  are  at  the  end  of  a  month's  administra 
tion,  and  yet  without  a  policy,  either  domestic,  foreign, " 
etc.,  etc.  The  President  sent  his  reply  the  same 
day.  Only  the  "hand  of  iron  in  the  glove  of  velvet" 
could  have  written  the  answer.  It  was  irresistible 
logic,  faultless  in  tact,  kind  but  positively  firm. 

The  President  concludes:  "I  remark  (regarding  an 
energetic  policy)  that  if  this  must  be  done,  I  must  do 
it.  When  a  general  line  of  policy  is  adopted  I  appre 
hend  there  is  no  danger  of  its  being  changed  without 
good  reason  or  continuing  to  be  a  subject  of  unneces 
sary  debate.  Still,  on  points  arising  in  its  progress, 
I  wish,  and  suppose  I  am  entitled  to  have,  the  advice 
of  all  the  Cabinet.  Your  ob't  serv't, 

"A.  LINCOLN." 

INSTRUCTIONS  TO  MAJOR  ROBERT  ANDERSON. 

War  Department,  Washington,  April  4,  1861. 
Sir:   Your  letter  of  the  ist  instant  occasions  some 
anxiety  to  the  President. 
On  the  information  of  Captain   Fox,  he  had  sup- 


LINCOLN'S   LETTERS.  263 


posed  you  could  hold  out  till  the  isth  instant  without 
any  great  inconvenience,  and  had  prepared  an  expedi 
tion  to  relieve  you  before  that  period. 

Hoping  still  that  you  will  be  able  to  sustain  your 
self  till  the  nth  or  i2th  instant,  and  he  has  entire 
confidence  that  you  will  act  as  becomes  a  patriot  and  a 
soldier  under  all  circumstances. 

Whenever,  if  at  all,  in  your  judgment,  to  save  your 
self  and  your  command,  a  capitulation  becomes  a 
necessity,  you  are  authorized  to  make  it. 

Respectfully, 

SIMON  CAMERON,  Secretary  of  War. 
To  Major  Robt.  Anderson,  United  States  Army. 

The  above  was  drafted  by  President  Lincoln  and 
signed  by  the  Secretary  of  War. 


Washington,  Feb.  3,  1862. 
General  McClellan. 

My  Dear  Sir:  You  and  I  have  distinct  and  different 
plans  for  a  movement  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac — 
yours  to  be  down  the  Chesapeake,  up  the  Rappahan- 
nock  to  Urbana  and  across  land  to  the  terminus  of  the 
railroad  on  the  York  River ;  mine  to  move  directly  to 
the  point  on  the  railroads  southwest  of  Manassas. 

If  you  will  give  me  satisfactory  answers  to  the  fol 
lowing  questions,  I  shall  gladly  yield  my  plan  to  yours : 

First:  Does  not  your  plan  involve  a  greatly  larger 
expenditure  of  time  and  money  than  mine? 

Second :  Wherein  is  a  victory  more  certain  by  your 
plan  than  mine? 

Third :  Wherein  is  a  victory  more  valuable  by  your 
plan  than  mine? 


26a  LINCOLN'S   LETTERS, 

Fourth:  In  fact,  would  it  not  be  less  valuable  in 
this,  that  it  would  break  no  greater  line  of  the  enemies' 
communication,  than  mine  would? 

Fifth:  In  case  of  disaster,  would  not  a  retreat  be 
more  difficult  by  your  plan  than  by  mine? 

Yours  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


LETTER  TO  AUGUST  BELMONT. 

July  31,  1862. 
August  Belmont,  Esq. 

Dear  Sir:  You  send  to  Mr.  W an  extract  from  a 

letter  written  at  New  Orleans  the  9th  instant,  which  is 
shown  to  me. 

You  do  not  give  the  writer's  name ;  but  plainly  he  is 
a  man  of  ability  and  probably  of  some  note.  He  says, 
"The  time  has  arrived  when  Mr.  Lincoln  must  take  a 
decisive  course. 

"Trying  to  please  everybody,  he  will  satisfy  nobody. 

"A  vacillating  policy  in  matters  of  importance  is  the 
very  worst.  Now  is  the  time,  if  ever,  for  honest  men 
who  love  their  country  to  rally  to  its  support. 

"Why  will  not  the  North  say  officially  that  it  wishes 
for  the  restoration  of  the  Union  as  it  was?" 

And  so  it  seems,  this  is  the  point  in  which  the  writer 
thinks  I  have  no  policy.  Why  will  he  not  read  and 
understand  what  I  have  said?  The  substance  of  the 
very  subject  he  desires  is  in  the  two  inaugurals,  in  each 
of  the  two  regular  messages  sent  to  Congress,  and  in 
many,  if  not  all,  of  the  minor  documents  issued  by  the 
Executive  since  the  inauguration. 

Broken  eggs  cannot  be  mended ;   but  Louisiana  has 


LINCOLN'S   LETTERS.  265 

nothing  to  do  now  but  to  take  her  place  in  the  Union 
as  it  was,  barring  the  already  broken  eggs.  The 
sooner  she  does  so,  the  smaller  will  be  the  amount  of 
that  which  is  past  mending. 

This  Government  cannot  much  longer  play  a  game  in 
which  it  stakes  all,  and  its  enemies  stake  nothing. 

Those  enemies  must  understand  that  they  cannot 
experiment  for  ten  years  trying  to  destroy  the  Govern 
ment,  and,  if  they  fail,  still  come  back  into  the  Union 
unhurt. 

If  they  expect,  in  any  contingency,  to  ever  have  the 
Union  as  it  was,  I  join  with  the  writer  in  saying, 
4 'Now  is  the  time." 

How  much  better  it  would  have  been  for  the  writer 
to  have  gone  at  this  under  the  protection  of  the  Army 
at  New  Orleans,  than  to  have  sat  in  a  closet  writing 
complaining  letters  northward !  Yours  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


THE  PRESIDENT  ON  THE  NEGRO  QUESTION. 

Executive  Mansion,  Washington,  August  22,  1862. 

Hon.  Horace  Greeley:  I  have  just  read  yours  of  the 
1 9th  addressed  to  myself  through  the  New  York 
Tribune. 

If  there  be  in  it  any  statements  or  assumptions  of 
fact  which  I  may  know  to  be  erroneous,  I  do  not  now 
and  here  controvert  it. 

If  there  be  in  it  any  inference  which  I  believe  to  be 
falsely  drawn,  I  do  not  now  and  here  argue  against  it. 

If  there  be  perceptible  in  it  an  impatient  and  dic 
tatorial  tone,  I  waive  it,  in  deference  to  an  old  friend, 
whose  heart  I  hav*  always  supposed  to  be  right. 


266  LINCOLN'S   LETTERS. 

As  to  the  policy  I  "seem  to  be  pursuing,"  as  you 
say,  I  have  not  meant  to  leave  any  one  in  doubt.  I 
would  save  the  Union.  I  would  save  it  in  the  shortest 
way  under  the  Constitution.  The  sooner  the  national 
authority  can  be  restored,  the  nearer  the  Union  will  be 
"the  Union  as  it  was." 

If  there  be  those  who  would  not  save  the  Union 
unless  they  could  at  the  same  time  save  slavery,  I  do 
not  agree  with  them.  If  there  be  those  who  would 
not  save  the  Union  unless  they  could  at  the  same  time 
destroy  slavery,  I  do  not  agree  with  them. 

My  paramount  object  in  this  struggle  is  to  save  the 
Union,  and  is  not  either  to  save  or  destroy  slavery. 

If  I  could  save  the  Union  without  freeing  any  slave 
I  would  do  it,  and  if  I  could  save  it  by  freeing  all  the 
slaves,  I  would  do  it.  And  if  I  could  save  it  by  free 
ing  some  and  leaving  others  alone,  I  would  also  do 
that. 

What  I  do  about  slavery  and  the  colored  race  I  do 
because  I  believe  it  helps  to  save  the  Union.  And 
what  I  forbear,  I  forbear  because  I  do  not  believe  it 
would  help  to  save  the  Union.  I  shall  do  less  when 
ever  I  shall  believe  what  I  am  doing  hurts  the  cause ; 
and  I  shall  do  more  whenever  I  shall  believe  doing 
more  will  help  the  cause. 

I  shall  try  to  correct  errors  when  shown  to  be  errors, 
and  I  shall  adopt  new  views  as  fast  as  they  shall  appear 
to  be  true  views. 

I  have  here  stated  my  purpose  according  to  my 
views  of  official  duty,  and  I  intend  no  modification  of 
my  oft-expressed  personal  wish  that  all  men  every 
where  should  be  free.  Yours, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


LINCOLN'S   LETTERS.  267 

PARTIAL  REPLY  TO  CENSURE  ON  THE   ARREST  OF 
VALLANDIGHAM,  JUNE,  1863. 

"Mr.  Vallandigham  avows  his  hostility  to  the  war  on 
the  part  of  the  Union ;  and  his  arrest  was  made  because 
he  was  laboring,  with  some  effect,  to  prevent  the  rais 
ing  of  troops,  to  encourage  desertions  from  the  army, 
and  to  leave  the  rebellion  without  an  adequate  military 
force  to  suppress  it. 

"He  was  not  arrested  because  he  was  damaging  the 
political  prospects  of  the  administration,  or  the  per 
sonal  interests  of  the  Commanding  General,  but 
because  he  was  damaging  the  army,  upon  the  exist 
ence  and  vigor  of  which  the  life  of  the  nation  depends. 

"He  was  warring  upon  the  military,  and  this  gave 
the  military  the  Constitutional  jurisdiction  to  lay  hands 
upon  him.  A.  LINCOLN." 

LETTER  TO  MAJOR-GENERAL  HOOKER. 

Executive  Mansion, 
Washington,  D.  C.,  Jan.  26,  1863. 
Major-General  Hooker. 

General :  I  have  placed  you  at  the  head  of  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac.  Of  course,  I  have  done  this  upon 
what  appears  to  me  to  be  sufficient  reasons,  and  yet  I 
think  it  best  for  you  to  know  that  there  are  some 
things  in  regard  to  which  I  am  not  quite  satisfied  with 
you. 

I  believe  you  to  be  a  brave  and  skillful  soldier, 
which,  of  course,  I  like.  I  also  believe  you  do  not  mix 
politics  with  your  profession,  in  which  you  are  right. 
You  have  confidence  in  yourself,  which  is  a  valuable, 
if  not  indispensable,  quality.  You  are  ambitious, 


268  LINCOLN'S   LETTERS. 

which,  within  reasonable  bounds,  does  good  rather 
than  harm.  But  I  think  that,  during  General  Burn- 
side's  command  of  the  Army,  you  have  taken  counsel 
of  your  ambitions,  and  thwarted  him  as  much  as  you 
could,  in  which  you  did  a  great  wrong,  both  to  the 
country,  and  a  most  meritorious  and  honorable  brother 
officer. 

I  have  heard,  in  such  a  way  as  to  believe  it,  of  your 
recently  saying  that  both  the  army  and  the  Govern 
ment  needed  a  dictator.  Of  course,  it  was  not  for  this, 
but  in  spite  of  it,  that  I  have  given  you  a  command. 

Only  those  generals  who  gain  success  can  set  up  as 
dictators.  What  I  ask  of  you  is  military  success,  and 
I  will  risk  the  dictatorship.  The  Government  will 
support  -you  to  the  utmost  of  its  ability,  which  is 
neither  more  nor  less  than  it  has  done  and  will  do  for 
all  commanders.  I  much  fear  that  the  spirit  that  you 
have  aided  to  infuse  into  the  army,  of  criticising  their 
commander,  and  withholding  confidence  from  him, 
will  now  turn  upon  you.  I  shall  assist  you  as  far  as  I 
can  to  put  it  down.  Neither  you  nor  Napoleon,  if  he 
were  alive  again,  could  get  any  good  out  of  an  army 
while  such  a  spirit  prevails  in  it. 

And  now,  beware  of  rashness!  Beware  of  rashness! 
But,  with  energy  and  sleepless  vigilance,  go  forward 
and  give  us  victories.  Yours  very  truly, 

A.   LINCOLN. 

THE  PRESIDENT'S  LETTER  TO  HON.  JAMES  C.  CONK 
LIN,  AUGUST  16,  1863. 

"I  do  not  believe  that  any  compromise  embracing 
the  maintenance  of  the  Union  is  now  possible. 

"The  strength  of  the  rebellion  is  in  the  army.     That 


LINCOLN'S   LETTERS.  269 

army  dominates  all  the  country  and  all  the  people 
within  its  range.  Any  offer  of  terms  made  by  any 
man  or  men  within  that  range,  in  opposition  to  that 
army,  is  simply  nothing  for  the  present,  because  such 
man  or  men  have  no  power  whatever  to  enforce  their 
side  of  a  compromise,  if  one  were  made  with  them. 
No  word  or  intimation  from  the  rebel  army,  or  from 
any  of  the  men  controlling  it,  in  relation  to  any  peace 
compromise,  has  ever  come  to  my  knowledge  or  belief. 

"You  dislike  the  Emancipation  Proclamation,  and 
perhaps  would  have  it  retracted.  You  say  it  is  uncon 
stitutional.  I  think  differently.  I  think  the  Constitu 
tion  invests  the  Commander-in-Chief  with  the  law  of 
war  in  time  of  war.  The  most  that  can  be  said  is,  that 
slaves  are  property. 

"Is  there  any  question  that,  by  the  law  of  war, 
property,  both  of  enemies  and  friends,  may  be  taken 
when  needed ;  and  is  it  not  needed  whenever  taking  it 
helps  us  to  hurt  the  enemy? 

"If  the  Proclamation  is  not  valid  in  law,  it  needs  no 
retraction;  if  it  is  valid,  it  cannot  be  retracted,  any 
more  than  the  dead  can  be  brought  to  life. 

"There  was  more  than  a  year  and  a  half  of  trial  to 
suppress  the  rebellion  before  the  Proclamation  was 
issued,  the  last  one  hundred  days  of  which  passed  under 
an  explicit  notice  that  it  was  coming  unless  it  was 
averted  by  those  in  revolt  returning  to  their  allegiance. 
The  war  has  certainly  progressed  as  favorably  for  us 
since  the  issue  of  the  Proclamation  as  before.  Some  of 
the  commanders  of  our  armies  in  the  field  who  have 
given  us  our  most  important  victories  believe  that  the 
Emancipation  Proclamation  policy,  and  the  aid.  of 
colored  troops,  constitute  the  heaviest  Blows  yet  "dealt 


270  LINCOLN'S   LETTERS. 

to  the  rebellion ;  and  that  at  least  one  of  those  impor 
tant  successes  could  not  have  been  achieved  when  it 
was  but  for  the  aid  of  black  soldiers. 

"Whatever  negroes  can  be  got  to  do  as  soldiers 
leaves  just  so  much  less  for  white  soldiers  to  do  in 
saving  the  Union.  But  negroes,  like  other  people,  act 
upon  notions.  Why  should  they  do  anything  for  us  if 
we  will  do  nothing  for  them?  If  they  stake  their  lives 
for  us  there  must  be  the  strongest  motive — even  the 
promise  of  their  freedom.  And  the  promise  being 
made  must  be  kept. 

4 'The  signs  look  better.  The  Father  of  Waters  goes 
unvexed  to  the  sea.  Thanks  to  the  great  Northwest 
for  it. 

"Nor  yet  wholly  to  them.  Three  hundred  miles  up 
they  met  New  England,  Empire,  Keystone,  and  Jer 
sey,  hewing  their  way  right  and  left.  The  sunny 
South,  too,  in  more  colors  than  one,  also  lent  a  hand. 
On  the  spot  their  part  of  the  history  was  jotted  down 
in  black  and  white.  The  job  was  a  great  national  one, 
and  let  none  be  banned  who  bore  an  honorable  part  in  it. 

"Peace  does  not  appear  so  distant  as  it  did.  I  hope 
it  will  soon  come,  and  come  to  stay ;  and  so  come  as  to 
be  Avorth  keeping  in  all  future  time.  And  then  there 
will  be  some  black  men  who  can  remember  that  they 
helped  Mankind  on  to  this  great  consummation,  while 
I  fear  that  there  will  be  some  white  men  unable  to 
forget  that  they  have  striven  to  hinder  it. 

"Still  let  us  be   ever   sanguine   of  a  speedy  final, 
triumph.     Let  us  be  quite  sober.     Let  us  diligently 
apply  the  means,  never  doubting  that  a  just  God  in  His 
own  good  time  will  give  us  the  rightful  results. 

"Your  friend,        A.  LINCOLN." 


LINCOLN'S    LETTERS.  271 

PRESENTATION   OF  A  GOLD  MEDAL*   TO    LIEUTEN 
ANT-GENERAL  GRANT  BY  PRESIDENT  LINCOLN. 

Executive  Mansion,  March  7,  1865. 
Lieutenant-General  Grant : 

In  accordance  with  a  joint  resolution  of  Congress 
approved  December  16,  1863,  I  now  have  the  honor  of 
transmitting  and  presenting  to  you,  in  the  name  of  the 
people  of  the  United  States  of  America,  a  copy  of  said 
resolutions  engrossed  on  parchment  together  with  the 
gold  medal  therein  ordered  and  directed. 

Please  accept  for  yourself  and  all  under  your  com 
mand  the  renewed  expression  of  my  gratitude  for  your 
and  their  arduous  and  well-performed  public  service. 

Your  obedient  servant, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


LETTER  TO  MRS.  GURNEY,  WIFE  OF  EMINENT 

ENGLISH   PREACHER  OF  THE  SOCIETY 

OF   FRIENDS. 

My  Esteemed  Friend:  I  have  not  forgotten — prob 
ably  never  shall  forget — the  very  impressive  occasion 
when  yourself  and  friends  visited  me  on  a  Sabbath 
forenoon,  two  years  ago;  nor  has  your  kind  letter, 
written  nearly  a  year  later,  ever  been  forgotten. 

In  all  it  has  been  your  purpose  to  strengthen  my 
reliance  on  God. 

I  am  much  indebted  to  the  good  Christian  people  of 
the  country  for  their  constant  prayers  and  consola 
tions,  and  to  no  one  more  than  to  yourself. 

The  purposes  of  the  Almighty  are  perfect,  and  must 

*  T?he  cost  of  medal  was  $6,000. 


LINCOLN'S   LETTERS. 

prevail,  though  we  erring  mortals  may  fail  to  accur 
ately  perceive  them  in  advance. 

We  hoped  for  a  happy  termination  of  this  terrible 
war  long  before  this;  but  God  knows  best,  and  has 
ruled  otherwise.  We  shall  yet  acknowledge  His  wis 
dom,  and  our  own  error  therein. 

Meanwhile  we  must  work  earnestly  in  the  best  lights 
He  gives  us,  trusting  that  so  working  still  conduces  to 
the  great  ends  He  ordains.  Surely,  He  intends  some 
great  good  to  follow  this  mighty  convulsion,  which  no 
mortal  could  make,  and  no  mortal  could  stay. 

Your  people,  the  Friends,  have  had,  and  are  having, 
a  very  great  trial.  On  principle  and  faith,  opposed  to 
both  war  and  oppression,  they  can  only  practically 
oppose  oppression  by  war.  In  this  hard  dilemma, 
some  have  chosen  one  horn,  and  some  the  other. 

For  those  appealing  to  me  on  conscientious  grounds, 
I  have  done,  and  shall  do,  the  best  I  could  and  can,  in 
my  own  conscience,  under  my  oath  to  the  law.  That 
you  believe  this  I  doubt  not,  and  believing  it  I  shall 
still  receive  for  our  country  and  myself  your  earnest 
prayers  to  our  Father  in  heaven. 

Your  sincere  friend, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


Lincoln's  Great  Speeches. 


LINCOLN'S  FIRST  POLITICAL  SPEECH. 

Mr.  Lincoln  made  his  first  political  speech  in  1832, 
at  the  age  of  twenty-three,  when  he  was  a  candidate 
for  the  Illinois  Legislature.  His  opponent  had  wearied 
the  audience  by  a  long  speech,  leaving  him  but  a  short 
time  in  which  to  present  his  views.  He  condensed  all 
he  had  to  say  into  a  few  words,  as  follows: 

"Gentlemen,  Fellow-Citizens:  I  presume  you  know 
who  I  am.  I  am  humble  Abraham  Lincoln.  I  have 
been  solicited  b)7  my  friends  to  become  a  candidate  for 
the  Legislature.  My  politics  can  be  briefly  stated. 
I  am  in  favor  of  the  Internal  Improvement  System,  and 
a  high  Protective  Tariff.  These  are  my  sentiments 
and  political  principles.  If  elected,  I  shall  be  thank 
ful.  If  not,  it  will  be  all  the  same." 


THE  PERPETUITY  OF  OUR   FREE  INSTITUTIONS. 

Delivered  before  the  Springfield,  111.,  Lyceum,  in 
January,  1837,  when  twenty-eight  years  of  age.  Com 
ing,  as  he  did  upon  this  occasion,  before  a  literary 
society,  Mr.  Lincoln's  Websterian  diction  is  more 
observable. 

273 


274          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

"Ladies  and  Gentlemen:  In  the  great  journal  of 
things  happening  under  the  sun,  we,  the  American 
people,  find  our  account  running  under  date  of  the 
nineteenth  century  of  the  Christian  era.  We  find  our 
selves  in  the  peaceful  possession  of  the  fairest  portion 
of  the  earth  as  regards  extent  of  territory,  fertility  cf 
soil,  and  salubrity  of  climate. 

"We  find  ourselves  under  the  government  of  a  sys 
tem  of  political  institutions  conducing  more  essentially 
to  the  ends  of  civil  and  religious  liberty  than  any  of 
which  history  of  former  times  tells  us. 

"We,  when  mounting  the  stage  of  existence,  found 
ourselves  the  legal  inheritors  of  these  fundamental 
blessings.  We  toiled  not  in  the  acquisition  or  estab 
lishment  of  them ;  they  are  a  legacy  bequeathed  to  us 
by  a  once  hardy,  brave,  and  patriotic,  but  now 
lamented  and  departed  race,  of  ancestors. 

"Theirs  was  the  task  (and  nobly  did  they  perform 
it)  to  possess  themselves,  us,  of  this  goodly  land,  to 
uprear  upon  its  hills  and  valleys  a  political  edifice  of 
liberty  and  equal  rights;  'tis  ours  to  transmit  these — 
the  former  unprofaned  by  the  foot  of  an  intruder,  the 
latter  undecayed  by  the  lapse  of  time  and  untorn  by 
usurpation — to  the  generation  that  fate  shall  permit 
the  world  to  know.  This  task,  gratitude  to  our 
fathers,  justice  to  ourselves,  duty  to  posterity — all 
imperatively  require  us  faithfully  to  perform. 

"How,  then,  shall  we  perform  it?  At  what  point 
shall  we  expect  the  approach  of  danger?  Shall  we 
expect  some  trans- Atlantic  military  giant  to  step  the 
ocean  and  crush  us  at  a  blow? 

"Never!  All  the  armies  of  Europe,  Asia  and  Africa, 
combined,  with  all  the  treasures  of  the  earth  (our  own 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT    SPEECHES.          275 

excepted)  in  their  military  chest,  with  a  Bonaparte  for 
a  commander,  could  not,  by  force,  take  a  drink  from 
the  Ohio,  or  make  a  track  on  the  Blue  Ridge,  in  a  trial 
of  a  thousand  years. 

* '  At  what  point,  then,  is  this  approach  of  danger  to 
be  expected?  I  answer,  if  ever  it  reach  us,  it  must 
spring  up  amongst  us.  It  cannot  come  from  abroad. 
If  destruction  be  our  lot,  ;\ve  must  ourselves  be  its 
author  and  finisher.  As  a  nation  of  freemen,  we  must 
live  through  all  time  or  die  by  suicide. 

*  *  I  hope  I  am  not  over- wary ;  but,  if  I  am  not,  there 
is  even  now  something  of  ill-omen  amongst  us.  I 
mean  the  increasing  disregard  for  law  which  pervades 
the  country,  the  disposition  to  substitute  the  wild  and 
furious  passions  in  lieu  of  the  sober  judgment  of  courts, 
and  the  worse  than  savage,  mobs  for  the  executive  min 
isters  of  j  ustice. 

"This  disposition  is  awfully  fearful  in  any  com 
munity,  and  that  it  now  exists  in  ours,  though  grating 
to  our  feelings  to  admit  it,  it  would  be  a  violation  of 
truth  and  an  insult  to  deny. 

Accounts  of  outrages  committed  by  mobs  form  the 
every-day  news  of  the  times.  They  have  pervaded 
the  country  from  New  England  to  Louisiana;  they  are 
neither  peculiar  to  the  eternal  snows  of  the  former, 
nor  the  burning  sun  of  the  latter. 

"They  are  not  the  creatures  of  climate,  neither  are 
they  confined  to  the  slave-holding  or  non-slave-holding 
States.  Alike  they  spring  up  among  the  pleasure-hunt 
ing  masters  of  Southern  slaves  and  the  order-loving 
citizens  of  the  land  of  steady  habits.  Whatever,  then, 
their  cause  may  be,  it  is  common  to  the  whole 
country. 


276          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

"Many  great  and  good  men,  sufficiently  qualified  for 
any  task  they  may  undertake,  may  ever  be  found, 
whose  ambition  would  aspire  to  nothing  beyond  a  seat 
in  Congress,  a  gubernatorial  or  presidential  chair ;  but 
such  belong  not  to  the  family  of  the  lion,  or  the  tribe 
of  the  eagle. 

"What!  Think  you  these  places  would  satisfy  an 
Alexander,  a  Caesar,  or  a  Napoleon?  Never!  Tower 
ing  genius  disdains  a  beaten  path.  It  seeks  regions 
hitherto  unexplored. 

"It  seeks  no  distinction  in  adding  story  to  story  upon 
the  monuments  of  fame,  erected  to  the  memory  of 
others.  It  denies  that  it  is  glory  enough  to  serve 
under  any  chief.  It  scorns  to  tread  in  the  footpaths  of 
any  predecessor,  however  illustrious.  It  thirsts  and 
burns  for  distinction,  and,  if  possible,  it  will  have  it, 
whether  at  the  expense  of  emancipating  the  slaves  or 
enslaving  freemen. 

"Another  reason  which  once  was,  but  which  to  the 
same  extent  is  now  no  more,  has  done  much  in  main 
taining  our  institutions  thus  far.  I  mean  the  power 
ful  influence  which  the  interesting  scenes  of  the 
Revolution  had  upon  the  passions  of  the  people,  as  dis 
tinguished  from  their  judgment. 

"But  these  histories  are  gone.  They  can  be  read  no 
more  forever.  They  were  a  fortress  of  strength.  But 
what  the  invading  foeman  could  never  do,  the  silent 
artillery  of  time  has  done, — the  levelling  of  the  walls. 
They  were  a  forest  of  giant  oaks,  but  the  all-resisting 
hurricane  swept  over  them  and  left  only  here  and  there^ 
a  lone  trunk,  despoiled  of  its  verdure,  shorn  of  its 
foliage,  unshading  and  unshaded,  to  murmur  in  a  few 
more  gentle  breezes  and  to  combat  with  its  mutilated 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          177 

limbs  a  few  more  rude  storms,  then  to  sink  and  be  no 
more.  They  were  the  pillars  of  the  temple  of  liberty, 
and  now  that  they  have  crumbled  away,  that  temple 
must  fall,  unless  we,  the  descendants,  supply  the  places 
with  pillars  hewn  from  the  same  solid  quarry  of  sober 
reason. 

"Passion  has  helped  us,  but  can  do  so  no  more.  It 
will  in  future  be  our  enemy. 

"Reason — cold,  calculating,  unimpassioned  reason — 
must  furnish  all  the  materials  for  our  support  and 
defense.  Let  those  materials  be  molded  into  general 
intelligence,  sound  morality,  and,  in  particular,  a 
reverence  for  the  Constitution  and  the  laws;  and  then 
our  country  shall  continue  to  improve,  and  our  nation, 
revering  his  name,  and  permitting  no  hostile  foot  to 
pass  or  desecrate  his  resting-place,  shall  be  the  first  to 
hear  the  last  trump  that  shall  awaken  our  Washington. 

"Upon  these  let  the  proud  fabric  of  freedom  rest  as 
the  rock  of  its  basis,  and  as  truly  as  has  been  said  of 
the  only  greater  institution,  'the  gates  of  hell  shall  not 
prevail  against  it.'  " 


NATIONAL  BANK  VS.  SUB-TREASURY. 

Delivered  in  the  Second  Presbyterian  Chucch, 
Springfield,  Illinois,  and  published  in  the  Sangamon 
Journal,  March  6,  1840.  The  debaters  on  the  ques 
tion  were  Messrs.  Logan,  Baker,  Browning  and 
Lincoln,  against  Douglas,  Calhoun,  Lamborn  and 
Thomas. 

»    "Fellow-citizens:  It  is  peculiarly  embarrassing  to  me 
to  attempt  a  continuance  of   the  discussion,  on  this 


*78          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

evening,  which  has  been  conducted  in  this  hall  on 
several  preceding  ones. 

"It  is  so,  because  on  each  of  these  evenings  there 
was  a  much  fuller  attendance  than  now,  without  any 
reason  for  its  being  so  except  the  greater  interest  the 
community  feel  in  the  speaker  who  addressed  them 
then  than  they  do  in  him  who  addresses  them  now. 

"I  am,  indeed,  apprehensive  that  the  few  who  have 
attended  have  done  so  more  to  spare  me  mortifica 
tion  than  in  the  hope  of  being  interested  in  anything  I 
may  be  able  to  say. 

"This  circumstance  casts  a  damp  upon  my  spirits 
which  I  am  sure  I  shall  be  unable  to  overcome  during 
the  evening. 

''The  subject  heretofore  and  now  to  be  discussed  is 
the  sub-treasury  scheme  of  the  present  administration, 
as  a  means  of  collecting,  safe-keeping,  transferring 
and  disbursing  the  revenues  of  the  nation  as  contrasted 
with  a  national  bank  for  the  same  purpose. 

"Mr.  Douglas  has  said  that  we  (the  Whigs)  have 
not  dared  to  meet  them  (the  Locos)  in  argument  on 
this  question. 

"I  protest  against  this  assertion.  I  say  we  have 
again  and  again  during  this  discussion  urged  facts  and 
arguments  against  the  sub-treasury  which  they  have 
neither  dared  to  deny  nor  attempted  to  answer. 

"But  lest  some  may  be  led  to  believe  that  we  really 
wish  to  avoid  the  question,  I  now  propose,  in  my 
humble  way,  to  urge  these  arguments  again,  at  the 
same  time  begging  the  audience  to  mark  well  the 
positions  I  shall  take  and  the  proof  I  shall  offer  to 
sustain  them,  and  that  they  will  not  allow  Mr.  Douglas 
or  his  friends  to  escape  the  force  of  them  by  a  round 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          279 

of  groundless  assertions  that  we  dare  not  meet  them 
in  argument. 

"First.  It  will  injuriously  affect  the  community  by 
its  operation  on  the  circulating  medium. 

"Second.     It  will  be  a  more  expensive  fiscal  agent. 

"Third.  It  will  be  a  less  secure  depository  for  the 
public  money. 

"Mr.  Lamborn  insists  that  the  difference  between 
the  Van  Buren  party  and  the  Whigs  is,  that  although 
the  former  sometimes  err  in  practice,  they  are  always 
correct  in  principle,  whereas  the  latter  are  wrong  in 
principle;  and  the  better  to  impress  this  proposition 
he  uses  a  figurative  expression  in  these  words : 

"  'The  Democrats  are  vulnerable  in  the  heel,  but 
they  are  sound  in  the  heart  and  head. ' 

"The  first  branch  of  the  figure — that  the  Democrats 
are  vulnerable  in  the  heel — I  admit  is  not  merely 
figurative,  but  literally  true.  Who  that  looks  for  a 
moment  at  their  Swartwouts,  their  Prices,  their  Har 
ringtons,  and  their  hundreds  of  others  scampering 
away  with  the  public  money  to  Texas,  to  Europe,  and 
to  every  spot  on  earth  where  a  villain  may  hope  to 
find  refuge  from  justice,  can  at  all  doubt  that  they 
are  most  distressingly  affected  in  their  heels  with  a 
species  of  running  itch? 

"It  seems  this  malady  of  the  heels  operates  on  the 
sound-headed  and  honest-hearted  creatures  very  much 
like  the  cork  leg  in  the  comic  song  did  on  its  owner, 
which,  when  he  had  once  got  started  on  it,  the  more 
he  tried  to  stop  it  the  more  it  would  run  away. 

"At  the  hazard  of  wearing  this  point  threadbare,  I 
will  relate  an  anecdote  which  is  too  strikingly  in  point 
to  be  omitted: 


280          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

"  A  witty  Irish  soldier  who  was  always  boasting  of  his 
bravery  when  no  danger  was  near,  who  invariably 
retreated  without  orders  at  the  first  charge  of  the 
engagement,  being  asked  by  the  captain  why  he  did 
so,  replied,  'Captain,  I  have  as  brave  a  heart  as  Julius 
Caesar  ever  had,  but  somehow  or  other,  when  danger 
approaches,  my  cowardly  legs  will  run  away  with  it!' 

"So  with  Mr.  Lamborn's  party. 

"They  take  the  public  money  into  their  own  hands 
for  the  most  laudable  purposes  that  wise  heads  and 
willing  hearts  can  dictate;  but,  before  they  can 
possibly  get  it  out  again,  their  rascally  vulnerable 
heels  will  run  away  with  them. 

"Mr.  Lamborn  refers  to  the  late  elections  in  the 
States,  and  from  the  result  predicts  that  every  State  in 
the  Union  will  vote  for  Mr.  Van  Buren  at  the  next 
Presidential  election. 

"Address  that  argument  to  cowards  and  knaves; 
with  the  free  and  the  brave  it  will  affect  nothing.  It 
may  be  true;  if  it  must,  let  it.  Many  free  countries 
have  lost  their  liberty,  and  ours  may  lose  hers;  but  if 
she  shall,  be  it  my  proudest  plume,  not  that  I  was  the 
last  to  desert,  but  that  I  never  deserted  her. 

"I  know  that  the  great  volcano  at  Washington, 
aroused  by  the  civil  spirits  that  reign  there,  is  belching 
forth  the  laws  of  political  corruption  in  a  current  broad 
and  deep,  which  is  sweeping  with  frightful  velocity 
over  the  whole  length  and  breadth  of  the  land,  bidding 
fair  to  leave  unscathed  no  green  spot  or  living  thing; 
while  on  its  bosom  are  riding,  like  demons  on  the  wav<5 
of  hell,  the  imps  of  that  evil  spirit  fiendishly  taunting 
all  those  who  dare  resist  its  destroying  course  with 
hopelessness  of  their  efforts;  and.  knowing  this,  I 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          281 

cannot  deny  that  all  may  be  swept  away.  Broken  by 
it,  I,  too,  may  be ;  bow  to  it,  I  never  will. 

"The  probability  that  we  may  fall  in  the  struggle 
ought  not  to  deter  us  from  the  support  of  a  course  we 
believe  to  be  just.  It  shall  not  deter  me. 

"If  ever  I  feel  the  soul  within  me  elevate  and 
expand  to  those  dimensions,  not  wholly  unworthy  of 
its  Almighty  architect,  it  is  when  I  contemplate  the 
cause  of  my  country  deserted  by  all  the  world  beside, 
and  I  standing  up  boldly  alone,  hurling  defiance  at  her 
victorious  opposers. 

"Here,  without  contemplating  the  consequences, 
before  heaven  and  in  the  face  of  the  world,  I  swear 
eternal  fealty  to  the  just  cause,  as  I  deem  it,  of  the 
land  of  my  life,  my  liberty,  and  my  love. 

"And  who  that  thinks  with  me  will  not  fearlessly 
adopt  that  oath  that  I  take?  Let  none  falter  who 
thinks  he  is  right,  and  we  may  succeed.  But  if,  after 
all,  we  may  fail,  be  it  so;  we  shall  still  have  the  proud 
consolation  of  saying  to  our  conscience,  and  to  the 
departed  shade  of  our  country's  freedom,  that  the 
cause  approved  of  our  judgment  and  adored  of  our 
hearts  in  disaster,  in  chains,  in  torture,  in  death,  we 
never  faltered  in  defending. ' ' 


A  GREAT  CONGRESSIONAL  SPEECH. 

Abraham  Lincoln  on  the  Presidency  and  general 
politics.  Delivered  in  the  House  of  Representatives, 
Washington,  D.  C.,  July  27,  1848. 

"Mr.  Speaker:  Our  Democratic  friends  seem  to  be 
in  great  distress  because  they  think  our  candidate  for 


282          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

the  Presidency  don't  suit  us.  Most  of  them  cannot 
find  out  that  General  Taylor  has  any  principles  at  all, 
some,  however,  have  discovered  that  he  has  one,  but 
that  one  is  entirely  wrong.  This  one  principle  is  his 
position  on  the  veto  power. 

"The  gentleman  from  Tennessee  (Mr.  Stan  ton),  who 
has  just  taken  his  seat,  indeed,  has  said  there  is  very 
little  if  any  difference  on  this  question  between  General 
Taylor  and  all  the  Presidents ;  and  he  seems  to  think 
it  sufficient  detraction  from  General  Taylor's  position 
on  it,  that  it  has  nothing  new  in  it.  But  all  others, 
whom  I  have  heard  speak,  assail  it  furiously. 

"A  new  member  from  Kentucky  (Mr.  Clarke),  of 
very  considerable  ability,  was  in  particular  concern 
about  it.  He  thought  it  altogether  novel  and  unprec 
edented  for  a  President,  or  a  Presidential  candidate, 
to  think  of  approving  bills  whose  Constitutionality 
may  not  be  entirely  clear  to  his  own  mind.  He  thinks 
the  ark  of  our  safety  is  gone,  unless  Presidents  shall 
always  veto  such  bills  as,  in  their  judgment,  may  be 
of  doubtful  Constitutionality.  However  clear  Congress 
may  be  of  their  authority  to  pass  any  particular  act, 
the  gentleman  from  Kentucky  thinks  the  President 
must  veto  if  he  has  doubts  about  it. 

"Now,  I  have  neither  time  nor  inclination  to  argue 
with  the  gentleman  on  the  veto  power  as  an  original 
question ;  but  I  wish  to  show  that  General  Taylor,  and 
not  he,  agrees  with  the  earliest  statesmen  on  this 
question.  When  the  bill  chartering  the  first  Bank 
of  the  United  States  passed  Congress,  its  Constitution 
ality  was  questioned;  Mr.  Madison,  then  in  the  House 
of  Representatives,  as  well  as  others,  opposed  it  on 
that  ground.  General  Washington,  as  President,  was 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          283 

called  on  to  approve  or  reject  it.  He  sought  and 
obtained,  on  the  Constitutional  question,  the  separate 
written  opinion  of  Jefferson,  Hamilton  and  Edmund 
Randolph,  they  then  being  respectively  Secretary  of 
State,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and  Attorney- 
General.  Hamilton's  opinion  was  for  the  power; 
while  Randolph's  and  Jefferson's  were  both  against  it. 
Mr.  Jefferson,  after  giving  his  opinion  decidedly  against 
the  Constitutionality  of  that  bill,  closed  his  letter  with 
the  paragraph  I  now  read: 

11  'It  must  be  admitted,  however,  that  unless  the 
President's  mind,  on  a  view  of  everything  which  is 
urged  for  and  against  this  bill,  is  tolerably  clear  that 
it  is  unauthorized  by  the  Constitution ;  if  the  pro  and 
the  con  hang  so  even  as  to  balance  his  judgment,  a 
just  respect  for  the  wisdom  of  the  Legislature  would 
naturally  decide  the  balance  in  favor  of  their  opinion  ; 
it  is  chiefly  for  cases  where  they  are  clearly  misled  by 
error,  ambition  or  interest,  that  the  Constitution  has 
placed  a  check  in  the  negative  of  the  President. 

"  'Thomas  Jefferson. 

"  'February  15,  1791.' 

"General  Taylor's  opinion,  as  expressed  in  his 
Allison  letter,  is  as  I  now  read: 

"  'The  power  given  by  the  veto  is  a  high  conserva 
tive  power;  but,  in  my  opinion,  should  never  be 
exercised,  except  in  cases  of  clear  violation  of  the 
Constitution,  or  manifest  haste  and  want  of  considera 
tion  by  Congress.' 

"It  is  here  seen  that,  in  Mr.  Jefferson's  opinion,  if 
on  the  Constitutionality  of  any  given  bill,  the  President 
doubts,  he  is  not  to  veto  it,  as  the  gentleman  from 


284          LINCOLN'vS   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

Kentticky  would  have  him  to  do,  but  is  to  defer  to 
Congress  and  approve  it.  And  if  we  compare  the 
opinions  of  Jefferson  and  Taylor,  as  expressed  in  these 
paragraphs,  we  shall  find  them  more  exactly  alike  than 
we  can  often  find  any  two  expressions  having  any 
literal  difference.  None  but  interested  fault-finders 
can  discover  any  substantial  variation. 

4 'But  gentlemen  on  the  other  side  are  unanimously 
agreed  that  General  Taylor  has  no  other  principle. 
They  are  in  utter  darkness  as  to  his  opinions  on  any 
of  the  questions  of  policy  which  occupy  the  public 
attention.  But  is  there  any  doubt  as  to  what  he  will 
do  on  the  prominent  questions,  if  elected?  Not  the 
least.  It  is  not  possible  to  know  what  he  will,  or 
would  do  in  every  imaginable  case;  because  many 
questions  have  passed  away,  and  others  doubtless  will 
arise  which  none  of  us  have  yet  thought  of;  but  on  the 
prominent  questions  of  currency,  tariff,  internal 
improvements,  and  Wilmot  proviso,  General  Taylor's 
course  is  at  least  as  well  defined  as  is  General  Cass'. 
Why,  in  their  eagerness  to  get  at  General  Taylor, 
several  Democratic  members  here  have  desired  to 
know  whether,  in  case  of  his  election,  a  bankrupt 
law  is  to  be  established.  Can  they  tell  us  General 
Cass'  opinion  on  this  question?  (Some  member  an 
swered:  'He  is  against  it.')  Aye,  how  do  you  know 
he  is?  There  is  nothing  about  it  in  the  platform,  or 
elsewhere,  that  I  have  seen.  If  the  gentleman  knows 
anything  which  I  do  not,  he  can  show  it.  But  to 
return :  General  Taylor,  in  his  Allison  letter,  says : 

"  'Upon  the  subject  of  the  tariff,  the  currency,  the 
improvement  of  our  great  highways,  rivers,  lakes, 
and  harbors,  the  will  of  the  people,  as  expressed 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          285 

through  their  Representatives  in  Congress,  ought 
to  be  respected  and  carried  out  by  the  Executive. ' 

"Now,  this  is  the  whole  matter — in  substance  it  is 
this:  The  people  say  to  General  Taylor: 

"  'If  you  are  elected,  shall  we  have  a  National 
Bank?' 

"He  answers:     'Your  will,  gentlemen,  not  mine.' 

"  'What  about  the  tariff?' 

"  'Say  yourselves.' 

"  'Shall  our  rivers  and  harbors  be  improved?' 

"  'Just  as  you  please.  If  you  desire  a  bank,  an 
alteration  of  the  tariff,  internal  improvements,  any  or 
all,  I  will  not  hinder  you.  Send  up  your  members  to 
Congress  from  the  various  districts,  with  opinions 
according  to  your  own,  and  if  they  are  for  these 
measures,  or  any  of  them,  I  shall  have  nothing  to 
oppose ;  if  they  are  not  for  them,  I  shall  not,  by  any 
appliance  whatever,  attempt  to  dragoon  them  into 
their  adoption. ' 

"Now,  can  there  be  any  difficulty  in  understanding 
this?  To  you,  Democrats,  it  may  not  seem  like  prin 
ciple  ;  but  surely  you  cannot  fail  to  perceive  the  position 
plainly  enough.  The  distinction  between  it  and  the 
position  of  your  candidate  is  broad  and  obvious,  and  I 
admit  you  have  a  clear  right  to  show  it  is  wrong,  if 
you  can ;  but  you  have  no  right  to  pretend  you  cannot 
see  it  at  all.  We  see  it,  and  to  us  it  appears  like  prin 
ciple,  and  the  best  sort  of  principle  at  that — the 
principle  of  allowing  the  people  to  do  as  they  please 
with  their  own  business. 

"My  friend  from  Indiana  (Mr.  C.  B.  Smith)  has 
aptly  asked:  'Are  you  willing  to  trust  the  people?' 
Some  of  you  answered,  substantially:  'We  are  willing 


286          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

to  trust  the  people ;  but  the  President  is  as  much  the 
representative  of  the  people  as  Congress. '  In  a  certain 
sense,  and  to  a  certain  extent,  he  is  the  representative 
of  the  people.  He  is  elected  by  them,  as  well  as 
Congress  is.  But  can  he,  in  the  nature  of  things, 
know  the  wants  of  the  people  as  well  as  three  hundred 
other  men  coming  from  the  various  localities  of  the 
nation?  If  so,  where  is  the  propriety  of  having  a 
Congress?  That  the  Constitution  gives  the  President 
a  negative  on  legislation  all  know ;  but  that  this  nega 
tive  should  be  so  combined  with  platforms  and  other 
appliances  as  to  enable  him,  and  in  fact,  almost  compel 
him,  to  take  the  whole  of  legislation  into  his  own 
hands,  is  what  we  object  to — is  what  General  Taylor 
objects  to — and  is  what  constitutes  the  broad  dis 
tinction  between  you  and  us.  To  thus  transfer  legisla 
tion  is  clearly  to  take  it  from  those  who  understand 
with  minuteness  the  interest  of  the  people,  and  give  it 
to  one  who  does  not  and  cannot  so  well  understand  it. 
"I  understand  your  idea,  that  if  a  Presidential 
candidate  avow  his  opinion  upon  a  given  question,  or 
rather  upon  all  questions,  and  the  people,  with  full 
knowledge  rof  this,  elect  him,  they  thereby  distinctly 
approve  all  those  opinions.  This,  though  plausible,  is 
a  most  pernicious  deception.  By  means  of  it  measures 
are  adopted  or  rejected,  contrary  to  the  wishes  of  the 
whole  of  one  party,  and  often  nearly  half  of  the  other. 
The  process  is  this:  Three,  four,  or  a  half-dozen 
questions  are  prominent  at  a  given  time;  the  party 
selects  its  candidate,  and  he  takes  his  position  on  each 
of  these  questions.  All  but  one  of  his  positions 
have  already  been  indorsed  at  former  elections,  and 
his  party  fully  committed  to  them;  but  that  one  is 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          287 

new,  and  a  large  portion  of  them  are  against  it.  But 
what  are  they  to  do?  The  whole  are  strung  together, 
and  they  must  take  all  or  reject  all.  They  cannot  take 
what  they  like  and  leave  the  rest.  What  they  are 
already  committed  to,  being  the  majority,  they  shut 
their  eyes  and  gulp  the  whole.  Next  election  still 
another  is  introduced  in  the  same  way. 

"If  we  run  our  eyes  along  the  line  of  the  past,  we 
shall  see  that  almost,  if  not  quite,  all  the  articles  of 
the  present  Democratic  creed  have  been  at  first  forced 
upon  the  party  in  this  very  way.  And  just  now,  and 
just  so,  opposition  to  internal  improvements  is  to  be 
established  if  General  Cass  shall  be  elected.  Almost 
half  the  Democrats  here  are  for  improvements,  but 
they  will  vote  for  Cass,  and  if  he  succeeds,  their  votes 
will  have  aided  in  closing  the  doors  against  improve 
ments.  Now,  this  is  a  process  which  we  think  is 
wrong.  We  prefer  a  candidate  who,  like  General  Tay 
lor,  will  allow  the  people  to  have  their  own  way 
regardless  of  his  private  opinion ;  and  I  should  think 
the  internal  improvement  Democrats  at  least,  ought  to 
prefer  such  a  candidate.  He  would  force  nothing  on 
them  which  they  don't  want,  and  he  would  allow  them 
to  have  improvements,  which  their  own  candidate,  if 
elected,  will  not. 

"Mr.  Speaker,  I  have  said  that  General  Taylor's 
position  is  as  well  defined  as  is  that  of  General  Cass. 
In  saying  this,  I  admit  I  do  not  certainly  know  what 
he  would  do  on  the  Wilmot  Proviso.  I  am  a  Northern 
man,  or  rather  a  Western  free  State  man,  with  a  con 
stituency  I  believe  to  be,  and  with  personal  feelings  I 
know  to  be,  against  the  extension  of  slavery.  As 
such,  and  with  what  information  I  have,  I  hope,  and 


288          LINCOLN'S   GREAT    SPEECHES. 

believe,  General  Taylor,  if  elected,  would  not  veto  the 
proviso,  but  I  do  not  know  it.  Yet,  if  I  knew  he  would 
I  still  would  vote  for  him.  I  should  dq  so,  because  in 
my  judgment  his  election  alone  can'  defeat  General 
Cass ;  and  because  should  slavery  thereby  go  into  the 
territory  we  now  have,  just  so  much  will  certainly 
happen  by  the  election  of  Cass;  and  in  addition,  a 
course  of  policy  leading  to  new  wars,  new  acquisitions 
of  territory,  and  still  further  extension  of  slavery. 
One  of  the  two  is  to  be  President;  which  is  preferable? 

"But  there  is  as  much  doubt  of  Cass  on  im 
provements  as  there  is  of  Taylor  on  the  proviso.  I 
have  no  doubt  of  General  Cass  on  this  question,  but  I 
know  the  Democrats  differ  among  themselves  as  to  his 
position.  My  internal  improvement  colleague  (Mr. 
Wentworth)  stated  on  this  floor  the  other  day,  that 
he  was  satisfied  Cass  was  for  improvements,  because 
he  had  voted  for  all  the  bills  that  he  (Mr.  W.)  had. 
So  far  so  good.  But  Mr.  Polk  vetoed  some  of  these 
very  bills ;  the  Baltimore  Convention  passed  a  set  of 
resolutions,  among  other  things,  approving  these 
vetoes,  and  Cass  declares  in  his  letter  accepting  the 
nomination,  that  he  has  carefully  read  these  resolu 
tions,  and  that  he  adheres  to  them  as  firmly  as  he 
approves  them  cordially.  In  other  words,  General 
Cass  voted  for  the  bills,  and  thinks  the  President  did 
right  to  veto  them ;  and  his  friends  here  are  amiable 
enough  to  consider  him  as  being  on  one  side  or  the 
other,  just  as  one  or  the  other  may  correspond  with 
their  own  respective  inclinations. 

4 'My  colleague  admits  that  the  platform  declares 
against  the  Constitutionality  of  a  general  system  of 
improvements,  and  that  General  Cass  indorses  the 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          289 

platform ;  but  he  still  thinks  General  Cass  is  in  favor 
of  some  sort  of  improvements.  Well,  what  are  they? 
As  he  is  against  general  objects,  those  he  is  for  must 
be  particular  and  local.  Now,  this  is  taking  the  sub 
ject  precisely  by  the  wrong  end.  Particularity — 
expending  the  money  of  the  whole  people  for  an 
object  which  will  benefit  only  a  portion  of  them,  is  the 
greatest  objection  to  improvements,  and  has  been  so 
held  by  General  Jackson,  Mr.  Polk,  and  all  others,  I 
believe,  till  now.  But  now  behold,  the  objects  most 
general,  nearest  free  from  this  objection,  are  to  be 
rejected,  while  those  most  liable  to  it  are  to  be 
embraced.  To  return :  I  cannot  help  believing  that 
General  Cass,  when  he  wrote  his  letter  of  acceptance, 
well  understood  he  was  to  be  claimed  by  the  advocates 
of  both  sides  of  this  question,  and  that  he  then  closed 
the  doors  against  all  further  expressions  of  opinion, 
purposely  to  retain  the  benefits  of  that  double  position. 
His  subsequent  equivocation  at  Cleveland,  to  my 
mind,  proves  such  to  have  been  the  case. 

"One  word  more,  and  I  shall  have  done  with  this 
branch  of  the  subject.  You  Democrats,  and  your 
candidate,  in  the  main,  are  in  favor  of  laying  down, 
in  advance,  a  platform — a  set  of  party  positions,  as  a 
unit;  and  then  of  enforcing  the  people,  by  every  sort 
of  appliance,  to  ratify  them,  however  unpalatable  some 
of  them  may  be.  We,  and  our  candidate,  are  in  favor 
of  making  Presidential  elections  and  the  legislation  of 
the  country  distinct  matters;  so  that  the  people  can 
elect  whom  they  please,  and  afterward  legislate  just 
as  they  please,  without  any  hindrance,  save  only  so 
much  as  may  guard  against  infractions  of  the  Constitu 
tion,  undue  haste,  and  want  of  consideration. 


290          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

"The  difference  between  us  is  as  clear  as  noon-day. 
That  we  are  right  we  cannot  doubt.  We  hold  the  true 
Republican  position.  In  leaving"  the  people's  business 
in  their  hands,  we  cannot  be  wrong.  We  are  willing, 
and  even  anxious,  to  go  to  the  people  on  this  issue. 

4  *  But  I  suppose  I  cannot  reasonably  hope  to  convince 
you  that  we  have  any  principles.  The  most  I  can 
expect  is,  to  assure  you  that  we  think  we  have,  and 
are  quite  contented  with  them. 

"The  other  day,  one  of  the  gentlemen  from  Georgia 
(Mr.  Iverson),  an  eloquent  man,  and  a  man  of  learn 
ing,  so  far  as  I  can  judge,  not  being  learned  myself, 
came  down  upon  us  astonishingly.  He  spoke  in  what 
the  Baltimore  American  calls  the  'scathing  and  wither 
ing  style. '  At  the  end  of  his  second  severe  flash  I  was 
struck  blind,  and  found  myself  feeling  with  my  fingers 
for  an  assurance  of  my  continued  physical  existence. 
A  little  of  the  bone  was  left,  and  I  gradually  revived. 
He  eulogized  Mr.  Clay  in  high  and  beautiful  terms, 
and  then  declared  that  we  had  deserted  all  our  prin 
ciples,  and  had  turned  Henry  Clay  out,  like  an  old 
horse,  to  root.  This  is  terribly  severe.  It  cannot  be 
answered  by  argument ;  at  least  I  cannot  so  answer  it. 

"I  merely  wish  to  ask  the  gentleman  if  the  Whigs 
are  the  only  party  he  can  think  of  who  sometimes 
turn  old  horses  out  to  root !  Is  not  a  certain  Martin 
Van  Buren  an  old  horse,  which  your  party  turned  out 
to  root?  and  is  he  not  rooting  to  your  discomfort  about 
now?  But  in  not  nominating  Mr.  Clay,  we  deserted 
our  principles,  you  say.  Ah!  in  what?  Tell  us,  ye 
men  of  principle,  what  principle  we  violated?  We  say 
you  did  violate  principle  in  discarding  Martin  Van 
Buren,  and  we  can  tell  you  how.  You  violated  the 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          291 

primary,  the  cardinal,  the  one  great  living  principle  of 
all  Democratic  representative  government — the  prin 
ciple  that  the  representative  is  bound  to  carry  out  the 
known  will  of  his  constituents. 

"A  large  majority  of  the  Baltimore  Convention  of 
1844  were,  by  their  constituents,  instructed  to  procure 
Van  Buren's  nomination  if  they  could.  In  violation, 
in  utter,  glaring  contempt  of  this,  you  rejected  him — 
rejected  him,  as  the  gentleman  from  New  York  (Mr. 
Birdsall),  the  other  day,  .expressly  admitted,  for 
availability — that  same  'general  availability'  which  you 
charge  on  us,  and  daily  chew  over  here,  as  something 
exceedingly  odious  and  unprincipled. 

4 'But  the  gentleman  from  Georgia  (Mr.  Iverson), 
gave  us  a  second  speech  yesterday,  all  well  considered 
and  put  down  in  writing,  in  which  Van  Buren  was 
scathed  and  withered  a  'few'  for  his  present  position 
and  movements.  I  can  not  remember  the  gentleman's 
precise  language,  but  I  do  remember  he  put  Van  Buren 
down,  down,  till  he  got  him  where  he  was  finally  to 
'sink'  and  'rot.' 

"By  the  way,  Mr.  Speaker,  did  you  know  I  am  a 
military  hero?  Yes,  sir,  in  the  days  of  the  Black  Hawk 
war  I  fought,  bled,  and  came  away.  Speaking  of 
General  Cass'  career,  reminds  me  of  my  own.  I  was 
not  at  Stillman's  defeat,  but  I  was  about  as  near  it  as 
Cass  to  Hull's  surrender;  and  like  him,  I  saw  the 
place  very  soon  afterward.  It  is  quite  certain  I  did 
not  break  my  sword,  for  I  had  none  to  break ;  but  I 
bent  a  musket  pretty  badly  on  one  occasion.  If  Cass 
broke  his  sword,  the  idea  is,  he  broke  it  in  desperation ; 
I  bent  the  musket  by  accident.  If  General  Cass  went 
in  advance  of  me  in  picking  whortleberries,  I  guess  I 


292          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

surpassed  him  in  charges  upon  wild  onions.  If  he  saw 
any  live,  righting  Indians,  it  was  more  than  I  did,  but 
I  had  a  good  many  bloody  struggles  with  the 
mosquitoes;  and  although  I  never  fainted  from  loss 
of  blood,  I  can  truly  say  I  was  often  very  hungry. 

"Mr.  Speaker,  if  I  should  ever  conclude  to  doff 
whatever  our  Democratic  friends  may  suppose  there 
is  of  black-cockade  Federalism  about  me,  and,  there 
upon,  they  should  take  me  up  as  their  candidate  for  the 
Presidency,  I  protest  they  shall  not  make  fun  of  me  as 
they  have  of  General  Cass,  by  attempting  to  write  me 
into  a  military  hero. 

"While  I  have  General  Cass  in  hand,  I  wish  to  say  a 
word  about  his  political  principles.  As  a  specimen,  I 
take  the  record  of  his  progress  on  the  Wilmot  Proviso. 
In  the  Washington  Union,  of  March  2,  1847,  there  is 
a  report  of  the  speech  of  General  Cass,  made  the  day 
before  in  the  Senate,  on  the  Wilmot  Proviso,  during 
the  delivery  of  which  Mr.  Miller,  of  New  Jersey,  is 
reported  to  have  interrupted  him  as  follows,  to-wit: 

"  'Mr.  Miller  expressed  his  great  surprise  at  the 
change  in  the  sentiments  of  the  Senator  from  Michi 
gan,  who  had  been  regarded  as  the  great  champion  of 
freedom  in  the  Northwest,  of  which  he  was  a  distin 
guished  ornament.  Last  year  the  Senator  from  Mich 
igan  was  understood  to  be  decidedly  in  favor  of  the 
Wilmot  Proviso ;  and,  as  no  reason  had  been  stated  for 
the  change,  he  (Mr.  Miller)  could  not  refrain  from  the 
expression  of  his  extreme  surprise. ' 

"To  this  General  Cass  is  reported  to  have  replied  as 
follows,  to-wit: 

"Mr.  Cass  said  that  the  course  of  the  Senator  from 
New  Jersey  was  most  extraordinary.  Last  year  he 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.         293 

(Mr.  Cass)  should  have  voted  for  the  proposition  had 
it  come  up.  But  circumstances  had  altogether 
changed.  The  honorable  Senator  then  read  several 
passages  from  the  remarks  given  above,  which  he  had 
committed  to  writing  in  order  to  refute  such  a  charge 
as  that  of  the  Senator  from  New  Jersey. 

"In  the  'remarks  above  committed  to  writing,'  is 
one  numbered  4,  as  follows,  to-wit : 

'  *4th.  Legislation  would  now  be  wholly  imperative, 
because  no  territory  hereafter  to  be  acquired  can  be 
governed  without  an  act  of  Congress  providing  for  its 
government.  And  such  an  act,  on  its  passage,  would 
open  the  whole  subject,  and  leave  the  Congress,  called 
on  to  pass  it,  free  to  exercise  its  own  discretion, 
entirely  uncontrolled  by  any  declaration  found  in  the 
statute  book.' 

"In  Niles*  Register,  vol.  73,  page  293,  there  is  a 
letter  of  General  Cass  to  A.  O.  P.  Nicholson,  of  Nash 
ville,  Tennessee,  dated  December  25,  1847,  from  which 
the  following  are  correct  extracts: 

"  'The  Wilmot  Proviso  has  been  before  the  country 
some  time.  It  has  been  repeatedly  discussed  in 
Congress,  and  by  the  public  press.  I  am  strongly 
impressed  with  the  opinion  that  a  great  change  has 
been  going  on  in  the  public  mind  upon  this  subject — 
in  my  own  as  well  as  others;  and  that  doubts  are 
resolving  themselves  into  convictions,  that  the  prin 
ciple  it  involves  should  be  kept  out  of  the  National 
Legislature,  and  left  to  the  people  of  the  Confederacy 
in  their  respective  local  governments. 

'Briefly,  then,  I  am  opposed  to  the  exercise  of  any 
jurisdiction  by  Congress  over  this  matter;  and  I  am  in 
favor  of  leaving  the  people  of  any  territory  which  may 


294          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

be  hereafter  acquired,  the  right  to  regulate  it  them 
selves,  under  the  general  principles  of  the  Constitution. 
Because : 

'  'I  do  not  see  in  the  Constitution  any  grant  of  the 
requisite  power  to  Congress ;  and  I  am  not  disposed  to 
extend  a  doubtful  precedent  beyond  its  necessity — the 
establishment  of  territorial  governments  when  needed 
— leaving  to  the  inhabitants  all  the  rights  compatible 
with  the  relations  they  bear  to  the  Confederation. ' 

"These  extracts  show,  in  1846,  General  Cass  was  for 
the  Proviso  at  once;  that,  in  March,  1847,  he  was  still 
for  it  but  not  just  then;  and  that,  in  December,  1847, 
against  it  altogether.  This  is  a  true  index  to  the 
whole  man.  When  the  question  was  raised  in  1846, 
he  was  in  a  blustering  hurry  to  take  ground  for  it. 
He  sought  to  be  in  advance,  and  to  avoid  the  uninter 
esting  position  of  a  mere  follower;  but  soon  he  began 
to  see  a  glimpse  of  the  great  Democratic  ox-gad  wav 
ing  in  his  face,  and  to  hear  indistinctly  a  voice  saying, 
'Back,  back,  sir;  back  a  little.'  He  shakes  his  head 
and  bats  his  eyes,  and  blunders  back  to  his  position  of 
March,  1847;  and  still  the  gad  waves  and  the  voice 
grows  more  distinct,  and  sharper  still — *  Back,  sir !  back, 
I  say!  further  back!'  and  back  he  goes  to  the  position 
of  December,  1847;  at  which  the  gad  is  still,  and  the 
voice  soothingly  says,  'So!  stand  still  at  that.' 

"Have  no  fears,  gentlemen,  of  your  candidate,  he 
exactly  suits  you,  and  we  congratulate  you  upon  it. 
However  much  you  may  be  distressed  about  our  candi 
date  you  have  all  cause  to  be  contented  and  happy 
with  your  own.  If  elected  he  may  not  maintain  all, 
or  even  any  of  his  positions  previously  taken ;  but  he 
will  be  sure  to  do  whatever  the  party  exigency,  for 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          295 

the  time  being,  may  require;  and  that  is  precisely 
what  you  want.  He  and  Van  Buren  are  the  same 
'manner  of  men';  and  like  Van  Buren,  he  will  never 
desert  you  till  you  first  desert  him. 

"But  I  have  introduced  General  Cass'  accounts  here, 
chiefly  to  show  the  wonderful  physical  capacities  of 
the  man.  They  show  that  he  not  only  did  the  labor 
of  several  men  at  the  same  time,  but  that  he  often  did 
it  at  several  places  many  hundred  miles  apart,  at  the 
same  time.  And  at  eating,  too,  his  capacities  are 
shown  to  be  quite  as  wonderful.  From  October,  1821, 
to  May,  1822,  he  ate  ten  rations  a  day  in  Michigan, 
ten  rations  a  day  here  in  Washington,  and  near  five 
dollars'  worth  a  day  besides,  partly  on  the  road 
between  the  two  places. 

"And  then  there  is  an  important  discovery  in  his 
example — the  art  of  being  paid  for  what  one  eats, 
instead  of  having  to  pay  for  it.  Hereafter,  if  any  nice 
man  shall  owe  a  bill  which  he  cannot  pay  in  any  other 
way,  he  can  just  board  it  out. 

"Mr.  Speaker,  we  have  all  heard  of  the  animal  stand 
ing  in  doubt  between  two  stacks  of  hay,  and  starving 
to  death;  the  like  of  that  would  never  happen  to 
General  Cass.  Place  the  stacks  a  thousand  miles  apart, 
he  would  stand  stock-still,  midway  between  them,  and 
eat  both  at  once ;  and  the  green  grass  along  the  line 
would  be  apt  to  suffer  some,  too,  at  the  same  time. 
By  all  means,  make  him  President,  gentlemen.  He 
will  feed  you  bounteously — if — if  there  is  any  left  after 
he  shall  have  helped  himself. 

"But  as  General  Taylor  is,  par  excellence,  the  hero 
of  the  Mexican  war;  and,  as  you  Democrats  say  we 
Whigs  have  always  opposed  the  war,  you  think  it  must 


*9*          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

be  very  awkward  and  embarrassing  for  us  to  go  for 
General  Taylor. 

"The  declaration  that  we  have  always  opposed  the 
war  is  true  or  false  according  as  one  may  understand 
the  term,  'opposing  the  war. '  If  to  say  'the  war  was 
unnecessarily  and  unconstitutionally  commenced,  by 
the  President'  be  opposing  the  war,  then  the  Whigs 
have  very  generally  opposed  it.  Whenever  they  have 
spoken  at  all  they  have  said  this;  and  they  have  said 
it  on  what  has  appeared  good  reason  to  them:  The 
marching  of  an  army  into  the  midst  of  a  peaceful 
Mexican  settlement,  frightening  the  inhabitants  away, 
leaving  their  growing  crops  and  other  property  to 
destruction,  to  you  may  appear  a  perfectly  amiable, 
peaceful,  unprovoking  procedure;  but  it  does  not 
appear  so  to  us.  So  to  call  such  an  act,  to  us  appears 
no  other  than  a  naked,  impudent  absurdity;  and  we 
speak  of  it  accordingly.  But  if,  when  the  war  had 
begun,  and  become  the  cause  of  the  country,  the  giving 
of  our  money  and  our  blood,  in  common  with  yours, 
was  support  of  the  war,  then  it  is  not  true  that  we 
have  always  opposed  the  war.  With  few  individual 
exceptions,  you  have  constantly  had  our  votes  here  for 
all  the  necessary  supplies. 

"And,  more  than  this,  you  have  had  the  services,  the 
blood,  and  the  lives  of  our  political  brethren  in  every 
trial  and  on  every  field.  The  beardless  boy  and  the 
mature  man — the  humble  and  the  distinguished,  you 
have  had  them.  Through  suffering  and  death,  by 
disease,  and  in  battle  they  have  endured,  and  fought, 
and  fallen  with  you.  Clay  and  Webster  each  gave  a 
son,  never  to  be  returned. 

"From  the  State  of  my  own  residence,  besides  other 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT    SPEECHES.  29, 

worthy  but  less  known  Whig  names,  we  sent  Marshall, 
Morrison,  Baker,  and  Hardin;  they  all  fought,  and 
one  fell,  and  in  the  fall  of  that  one,  we  lost  our  best 
Whig  man.  Nor  were  the  Whigs  few  in  number,  or 
laggard  in  the  day  of  danger.  In  that  fearful,  bloody, 
breathless  struggle  at  Buena  Vista,  where  each  man's 
hard  task  was  to  beat  back  five  foes,  or  die  himself,  of 
the  five  high  officers  who  perished,  four  were  Whigs. 

"In  speaking  of  this,  I  mean  no  odious  comparison 
between  the  lion-hearted  Whigs  and  Democrats  who 
fought  there.  On  other  occasions,  I  doubt  not  the 
proportion  was  different.  I  wish  to  do  justice  to  all. 
I  think  of  all  those  brave  men  as  Americans,  in  whose 
proud  fame,  as  an  American,  I,  too,  have  a  share. 
Many  of  them,  Whigs  and  Democrats,  are  my  con 
stituents  and  personal  friends;  and  I  thank  them — 
more  than  thank  them — one  and  all,  for  the  high, 
imperishable  honor  they  have  conferred  on  our 
common  State. 

"But  the  distinction  between  the  cause  of  the  Presi 
dent  in  beginning  the  war,  and  the  cause  of  the 
country  after  it  was  begun,  is  a  distinction  which  you 
cannot  perceive.  To  you,  the  President  and  the  coun 
try  seem  to  be  all  one.  You  are  interested  to  see  no 
distinction  between  them;  and  I  venture  to  suggest 
that  possibly  your  interest  blinds  you  a  little. 

"We  see  the  distinction,  as  we  think,  clearly  enough ; 
and  our  friends,  who  have  fought  in  the  war,  have  no 
difficulty  in  seeing  it  also.  What  those  who  have 
fallen  would  say,  were  they  alive  and  here,  of  course 
we  can  never  know;  but  with  those  who  have 
returned  there  is  no  difficulty. 

" Colonel  Haskell  and  Major  Gaines,  members  here, 


198          LINCOLN'S   GREAT    SPEECHES. 

both  fought  in  the  war;  and  one  of  them  underwent 
extraordinary  perils  and  hardships;  still  they,  like  all 
other  Whigs  here,  vote  on  the  record  that  the  war  was 
unnecessarily  and  unconstitutionally  commenced  by 
the  President. 

"And  even  General  Taylor  himself,  the  noblest 
Roman  of  them  all,  has  declared  that,  as  a  citizen,  and 
particularly  as  a  soldier,  it  was  sufficient  for  him  to 
know  that  his  country  was  at  war  with  a  foreign 
nationy  to  do  all  in  his  power  to  bring  it  to  a  speedy 
and  honorable  termination,  by  the  most  vigorous  and 
energetic  operations,  without  inquiring  about  its  justice, 
or  anything  else  connected  with  it. 

"Mr.  Speaker,  let  our  Democratic  friends  be  com 
forted  with  the  assurance  that  we  are  content  with  our 
position,  content  with  our  company,  and  content  with 
our  candidate;  and  that  although  they,  in  their  gen 
erous  sympathy,  think  we  ought  to  be  miserable,  we 
really  are  not,  and  that  they  may  dismiss  the  great 
anxiety  they  have  on  our  account." 


LINCOLN'S  TEMPERANCE  SPEECH. 

Originally  printed  as  "An  address  by  Abraham 
Lincoln,  Esq."  Delivered  before  the  Springfield 
Washingtonian  Temperance  Society,  at  the  Second 
Presbyterian  Church,  on  the  226.  day  of  February,  1842 : 

"Although  the  temperance  cause  has  been  in  prog 
ress  for  nearly  twenty  years,  it  is  apparent  to  all  that  it 
is  just  now  being  crowned  with  a  degree  of  success 
hitherto  unparalleled. 

"The  list  of  its  friends  is  daily  swelled  by  the  addi- 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT    SPEECHES.  299 

tion  of  fifties,  hundreds,  and  thousands.  The  cause 
itself  seems  suddenly  transformed  from  a  cold,  abstract 
theory  to  a  living,  breathing,  active,  and  powerful 
chief  thing,  going  forth  'conquering  and  to  conquer.1 
The  citadels  of  his  great  adversary  are  daily  being 
stormed  and  dismantled;  his  temples  and  his  altars, 
where  the  rites  of  his  idolatrous  worship  have  long 
been  performed,  and  where  human  sacrifices  have  long 
been  wont  to  be  made,  are  daily  desecrated  and 
deserted.  The  tramp  of  the  conqueror's  fame  is 
sounding  from  hill  to  hill,  from  sea  to  sea,  from  land 
to  land,  and  calling  millions  to  his  standard  at  a  blast. 

"For  this  new  and  splendid  success  we  heartily 
rejoice.  That  success  is  so  much  greater  now  than 
heretofore  is  doubtless  owing  to  rational  causes ;  and  if 
we  would  have  it  continue,  we  shall  do  well  to  enquire 
what  those  causes  are. 

"The  warfare  heretofore  waged  against  the  demon 
intemperance  has,  somehow  or  other,  been  erroneous. 
Either  the  champions  engaged  or  the  tactics  they  have 
adopted  have  not  been  the  most  proper.  These  cham 
pions,  for  the  most  part,  have  been  teachers,  lawyers, 
and  hired  agents;  between  these  and  a  mass  of  man 
kind  there  is  a  want  of  approachability,  if  the  term  be 
admissible,  partial,  fatal  to  their  success.  They  are 
supposed  to  have  no  sympathy  of  feeling  or  interest 
with  those  very  persons  whom  it  is  their  object  to  con 
vince  and  persuade. 

"And,  again,  it  is  so  easy  and  so  common  to  ascribe 
motives  to  men  of  these  classes  other  than  those  they 
profess  to  act  upon.  The  preacher,  it  is  said,  advo 
cates  temperance  because  he  is  a  fanatic,  and  desires  a 
union  of  the  Church  and  State ;  the  lawyer,  from  his 


300          LINCOLN'S   GREAT    SPEECHES. 

pride  and  vanity  of  hearing  himself  speak;  and  the 
hired  agent,  for  his  salary. 

"But  when  one  who  has  long  been  known  as  the  vic 
tim  of  intemperance  burst  the  fetters  that  have  bound 
him  and  appears  before  his. neighbors  'clothed,  in  his 
right  mind,'  a  redeemed  specimen  of  long  lost 
humanity,  and  stands  up  with  tears  of  joy  trembling 
in  his  eyes  to  tell  the  miseries  once  endured,  now  to  be 
endured  no  more  forever ;  of  his  once  naked  and  starv 
ing  children,  now  fed  and  clad  comfortably;  of  a  wife 
long  weighed  down  with  woe,  weeping,  and  a  broken 
heart,  now  restored  to  health,  happiness,  and  a 
renewed  affection,  and  how  easily  it  is  all  done,  once 
resolved  to  be  done ;  how  simple  his  language ;  there 
is  a  logic  and  eloquence  in  it  that  few  with  human 
feelings  can  resist. 

"They  cannot  say  that  he  desired  a  union  of 
Church  and  State,  for  he  is  not  a  church  member;  they 
cannot  say  he  is  vain  of  hearing  himself  speak,  for  his 
whole  demeanor  shows  he  would  gladly  avoid  speaking 
at  all;  they  cannot  say  he  speaks  for  pay,  for  he 
receives  none.  Nor  can  his  sincerity  in  any  way  be 
doubted,  or  his  sympathy  for  those  he  would  persuade 
to  imitate  his  example  be  denied. 

''In  my  judgment  it  is  to  the  battles  of  this  new 
class  of  champions  our  late  success  is  greatly,  perhaps 
ehiefty,  owing.  But  had  the  old  school  champions 
themselves  been  of  the  most  wise  selecting?  Was 
their  system  of  tactics  the  most  judicious?  It  seems 
to  me  it  was  not. 

"Too  much  denunciation  against  dram-sellers  and 
dram-drinkers  was  indulged  in.  This,  I  think,  was 
both  impolitic,  and  unjust.  It  was  impolitic,  because 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          301 

it  is  not  much  in  the  nature  of  man  to  be  driven  to 
anything,  still  less  to  be  driven  about  that  which  is 
exclusively  his  own  business;  and  least  of  all,  where 
such  driving  is  to  be  submitted  to  at  the  expense  of 
pecuniary  interest,  or  burning  appetite. 

"When  the  dram-seller  and  drinker  were  incessantly 
told,  not  in  the  accents  of  entreaty  and  persuasion, 
diffidently  addressed  by  erring  men  to  an  erring 
brother,  but  in  the  thundering  tones  of  anathema  and 
denunciation,  with  which  the  lordly  judge  often  groups 
together  all  the  crimes  of  the  felon's  life  and  thrusts 
them  in  his  face  just  ere  he  passes  sentence  of  death 
upon  him,  that  they  were  the  authors  of  all  the  vice 
and  misery  and  crime  in  the  land;  that  they  were  the 
manufacturers  and  material  of  all  the  thieves  and  rob 
bers  and  murderers  that  infest  the  earth ;  that  their 
houses  were  the  workshops  of  the  devil,  and  that  their 
persons  should  be  shunned  by  all  the  good  and  virtuous 
as  moral  pestilences. 

"I  say,  when  they  were  told  all  this,  and  in  this  way, 
it  is  not  wonderful  that  they  were  slow,  very  slow,  to 
acknowledge  the  truth  of  such  denunciation,  and  to 
join  the  ranks  of  their  denouncers  in  a  hue  and  cry 
against  themselves. 

"To  have  expected  them  to  do  otherwise  than  they 
did — to  have  expected  them  not  to  meet  denunciation 
with  denunciation,  crimination  with  crimination,  and 
anathema  with  anathema — was  to  expect  a  reversal  of 
liuman  nature,  which  is  God's  decree  and  can  never  be 
reversed. 

i;When  the  conduct  of  men  is  designed  to  be  influ 
enced,  persuasion,  kind,  unassuming  persuasion,  should 
ever  be  adopted.  It  is  an  old  and  true  maxim  that. 


302          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

'A  drop  of  honey  catches  more  flies  than  a  gallon  of 

gall. '     So  with  men. 

"If  you  would  win  a  man  to  your  cause,  first  con 
vince  him  that  you  are  his  sincere  friend.  Therein  is 
the  drop  of  honey  that  catches  his  heart ;  which,  do  what 
he  will,  is  the  great  road  to  his  reason,  and  which, 
when  once  gained,  you  will  find  but  little  trouble  in 
convincing  his  judgment  of  the  justice  of  your  cause, 
if,  indeed,  that  cause  be  really  a  just  one.  On  the 
contrary,  assume  to  dictate  to  his  judgment,  or  to  com 
mand  his  action,  or  to  mark  him  as  one  to  be  shunned 
and  despised,  and  he  will  retreat  within  himself,  close 
all  the  avenues  to  his  head  and  his  heart,  and  though 
your  cause  be  the  naked  truth  itself,  transformed  to  the 
heaviest  lance,  harder  than  steel,  and  sharper  than 
steel  can  be  made,  and  though  you  throw  it  with  more 
than  herculean  force  and  precision,  you  shall  be  no 
more  able  to  pierce  him  than  to  penetrate  the  hard 
shell  of  a  tortoise  with  a  rye  straw.  Such  is  man,  and 
so  must  he  be  understood  by  those  who  would  lead 
him,  even  to  his  own  best  interest.  , 

"On  this  point  the  Washingtonians  greatly  excel  the 
temperance  advocates  of  former  times.  Those  whom 
they  desire  to  convince  and  persuade  are  their  old 
friends  and  companions.  They  know  they  are  not 
demons,  nor  even  the  worst  of  men ;  they  know  that 
generally  they  are  kind,  generous,  and  charitable,  even 
beyond  the  example  of  the  more  staid  and  sober  neigh 
bors.  They  are  practical  philanthropists;  and  they 
glow  with  a  generous  and  brotherly  zeal,  that  mere 
theorizers  are  incapable  of  feeling.  Benevolence  and 
charity  possess  their  heart  entirely;  and  out  of  the 
abundance  of  their  heart  their  tongues  give  utterance: 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT    SPEECHES.          303 

'Love  through,  all  their  actions  runs,  and  all  their  words 
are  mild* ;  in  this  spirit  they  speak  and  act,  and  in 
the  same  they  are  heard  and  regarded.  And  when 
such  is  the  temper  of  the  advocate,  and  such  of  the 
audience,  no  good  cause  can  be  unsuccessful.  But  I 
have  said  that  denunciations  against  dram-sellers  and 
clram-drinkers  are  unjust  as  well  as  impolitic.  Let  us 
see. 

"I  have  not  inquired  at  what  period  of  time  the  use 
of  intoxicating  liquors  commenced,  nor  is  it  important 
to  know.  It  is  sufficient  that  to  all  of  us  who  now 
inhabit  the  world  the  practice  of  drinking  them  is  just 
as  old  as  the  world  itself — that  is,  we  have  seen  the  one 
just  as  long  as  we  have  seen  the  other.  When  all 
of  us,  who  have  now  reached  the  years  of  maturity,  first 
opened  our  eyes  upon  the  stage  of  existence,  we  found 
intoxicating  liquors  recognized  by  everybody,  used  by 
everybody,  repudiated  by  nobody.  It  commonly 
entered  into  the  first  draught  of  the  infant  and  the  last 
of  the  dying  man. 

"From  the  sideboard  of  the  parson  down  to  the  ragged 
pocket  of  the  homeless  loafer,  it  was  constantly  found. 
Physicians  prescribed  it  in  this,  that,  and  the  other 
disease ;  Government  provided  it  for  soldiers  and  sail 
ors;  and  to  have  a  rolling  or  a  raising,  a  husking,  or 
hoe-down  anywhere  about  without  it,  was  positively 
insufferable. 

"So,  too,  it  was  everywhere  a  respectable  article  of 
manufacture  and  merchandise.  The  making  of  it  was 
regarded  as  an  honorable  livelihood,  and  he  who  could 
make  most  was  the  most  enterprising  and  respectable. 
Manufactories  of  it  were  everywhere  erected,  in  which 
all  the  earthly  goods  of  their  owners  were  invested. 


304          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

Wagons  drew  it  from  town  to  town,  boats  bore  it  from 
clime  to  clime,  and  the  winds  wafted  it  from  nation  to 
nation;  and  merchants  bought  and  sold  it  by  wholesale 
and  retail  with  precisely  the  same  feelings  on  the  part 
of  the  seller,  buyer,  and  bystander  as  are  felt  at  the 
selling  and  buying  of  plows,  bacon,  or  any  other  of  the 
real  necessaries  of  life.  Universal  public  opinion  not 
only  tolerated  but  recognized  and  adopted  its  use. 

"It  is  true  that  even  then  it  was  known  and 
acknowledged  that  many  were  greatly  injured  by  it; 
but  none  seemed  to  think  that  the  injury  arose  from 
the  use  of  a  bad  thing,  but  from  the  use  of  a  very  good 
thing.  The  victims  of  it  were  to  be  pitied  and  com 
passionated,  just  as  are  the  heirs  of  consumption  and 
other  hereditary  diseases.  The  failing  was  treated  as 
a  misfortune,  and  not  as  a  crime. 

"If,  then,  what  I  have  been  saying  is  true,  is  it 
wonderful  that  some  should  think  and  act  now  as  all 
thought  and  acted  twenty  years  ago  •  and  is  it  just  to 
assail,  condemn,  or  despise  them  for  doing  so?  The 
universal  sense  of  mankind,  on  any  subject,  is  an 
argument,  or  at  least  an  influence,  not  easily  overcome. 

"The  success  of  the  argument  in  favor  of  the  exist 
ence  of  an  overruling  Providence  mainly  depends  upon 
that  sense ;  and  men  ought  not,  in  justice,  to  be 
denounced  for  yielding  to  it  in  any  case,  or  giving  it  up 
slowly,  especially  when  they  are  backed  by  interest, 
fixed  habits,  or  burning  appetites. 

"Another  error,  as  it  seems  to  me,  into  which  the 
old  reformers  fell,  was  the  position  that  all  habitual 
drunkards  were  utterly  incorrigible,  and  therefore 
must  be  turned  adrift  and  damned  without  remedy,  in 
order  that  the  grace  of  temperance  might  abound,  to 


LINCOLN'S  GREAT   SPEECHES.          305 

the  temperate,  then,  and  to  all  mankind  some  hundreds 
of  years  thereafter. 

"There  is  in  this,  something  so  repugnant  to  human 
ity,  so  uncharitable,  so  cold-blooded,  and  feelingless, 
that  it  never  did,  nor  never  can,  enlist  the  enthusiasm 
of  a  popular  cause.  We  could  not  love  the  man  who 
taught  it — we  could  not  hear  him  with  patience.  The 
heart  could  not  throw  open  its  portals  to  it;  the  gener 
ous  man  could  not  adopt  it ;  it  could  not  mix  with  his 
blood.  It  looked  so  fiendishly  selfish,  so  like  throwing 
fathers  and  brothers  overboard  to  lighten  the  boat  for 
our  security,  that  the  noble-minded  shrank  from  the 
manifest  meanness  of  the  thing.  And,  besides  this, 
the  benefits  of  a  reformation  to  be  effected  by  such  a 
system  were  too  remote  in  point  of  time  to  warmly 
engage  many  in  its  behalf. 

"Few  can  be  induced  to  labor  exclusively  for  pos 
terity,  and  none  will  do  it  enthusiastically.  Posterity 
has  done  nothing  for  us;  and,  theorize  on  it  as  we  may, 
practically  we  shall  do  very  little  for  it  unless  we  are 
made  to  think  we  are,  at  the  same  time,  doing  some 
thing  for  ourselves. 

"What  an  ignorance  of  human  nature  does  it  exhibit 
to  ask  or  expect  a  whole  community  to  rise  up  and 
labor  for  the  temporal  happiness  of  others,  after  them 
selves  shall  be  consigned  to  the  dust,  when  a  majority 
of  this  community  take  no  pains  whatever  to  secure 
their  own  eternal  welfare!  Great  distance  in  either 
time  or  space  has  wonderful  power  to  lull  and  render 
quiescent  the  human  mind.  Pleasures  to  be  enjoyed, 
or  pains  to  be  endured,  after  we  shall  be  dead  and 
gone,  are  but  little  regarded,  even  in  our  own  cases, 
and  much  less  in  the  case  of  others. 


306          LINCOLN'S   GREAT    SPEECHES. 

"Still,  in  addition  to  this,  there  is  something  so 
ludicrous  in  promises  of  good  or  threats  of  evil  a  great 
way  off,  as  to  render  the  whole  subject  with  which  they 
are  connected  easity  turned  to  ridicule.  'Better  lay 
down  that  spade  you're  stealing,  Paddy — if  you  don't 
you'll  pay  for  it  at  the  day  of  judgment.'  'By  the 
powers,  if  ye '11  credit  me  so  long,  I'll  take  another 
jist.'^ 

"By  the  Washingtonians  this  system  of  consigning 
the  habitual  drunkard  to  hopeless  ruin  is  repudiated. 
They  adopt  a  more  enlarged  philanthropy.  They  go 
for  present  as  well  as  for  future  good.  They  labor  for 
all  now  living,  as  well  as  hereafter  to  live.  They 
teach  hope  to  all — despair  to  none.  As  applying  to 
their  cause,  they  deny  the  doctrine  of  unpardonable 
sin.  As  in  Christianity,  it  is  taught,  so  in  this  they 
teach : 

"  'While  the  lamp  holds  out  to  burn, 
The  vilest  sinner  may  return.' 

"And,  that  which  is  a  matter  of  most  profound  con 
gratulation,  is  the  fact  that  they,  by  experiment  upon 
experiment,  and  example  upon  example,  prove  the 
maxim  to  be  no  less  true  in  the  one  case  than  in  the 
other.  On  every  hand  we  behold  those  who  but  yes 
terday  were  the  chief  of  sinners,  now  the  chief  apostles 
of  the  cause.  Drunken  devils  are  cast  out  by  ones, 
by  sevens,  by  legions,  and  their  unfortunate  victims, 
like  the  poor  possessed  who  was  redeemed  from  his 
long  and  lonely  wandering  in  the  tomb,  are  publishing 
to  the  ends  of  the  earth  how  great  things  have  been 
done  for  them. 


LINCOLN'S  GREAT   SPEECHES.          307 

"To  these  new  champions  and  this  new  system  of 
tactics  our  late  success  is  mainly  owing,  and  to  them 
we  must  mainly  look  for  the  final  consummation.  The 
ball  is  now  rolling  gloriously  on,  and  none  are  so  able 
as  they  to  increase  its  speed  and  its  bulk,  to  add  to  its 
momentum  and  magnitude.  Even  though  unlearned  in 
letters,  for  this  task  none  are  so  well  educated.  To  fit 
them  for  this  work  they  have  been  taught  in  the  true 
school,  They  have  been  in  that  gulf  from  which  they 
would  teach  others  the  means  of  escape.  They  have 
passed  that  prison  wall  which  others  have  long 
declared  impassable,  and  who  that  has  not,  shall  dare 
to  weigh  opinions  with  them  as  to  the  mode  of 
passing? 

"But  if  it  be  true,  as  I  have  insisted,  that  those  who 
have  suffered  by  intemperance  personally  and  have 
reformed  are  the  most  powerful  and  efficient  instru 
ments  to  push  the  reformation  to  ultimate  success,  it 
does  not  follow  that  those  who  have  not  suffered  have 
no  part  left  them  to  perform.  Whether  or  not  the 
world  would  be  vastly  benefited  by  total  and  final  ban 
ishment  from  it  of  all  intoxicating  drinks  seems  to 
me  not  now  an  open  question.  Three-fourths  of 
mankind  confess  the  affirmative  with  their  tongues, 
and  I  believe  all  the  rest  acknowledge  it  in  their 
hearts. 

"Ought  any,  then,  to  refuse  their  aid  in  doing  what 
the  good  of  the  whole  demands?  Shall  he  who  cannot 
do  much  be  for  that  reason  excused  if  he  do  nothing? 
'But,'  says  one,  'what  good  can  I  do  by  signing  the 
pledge?  I  never  drink,  even  without  signing.'  This 
question  has  already  been  asked  and  answered  more 
than  a  million  times.  Let  it  be  answered  once  more. 


3o8         LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES, 

For  the  man,  suddenly  or  in  any  other  way,  to  break 
off  from  the  use  of  drams,  who  has  indulged  in  them 
for  a  long  course  of  years,  and  until  his  appetite  has 
grown  ten  or  a  hundred  fold  stronger  and  more  craving 
than  any  natural  appetite  can  be,  requires  a  most 
powerful  moral  effort.  In  such  an  undertaking,  he 
needs  every  moral  support  and  influence  that  can  pos 
sibly  be  brought'  to  his  aid  and  thrown  around  him. 
And  not  only  so,  but  every  moral  prop  should  be  taken 
from  whatever  argument  might  rise  in  his  mind  to  lure 
him  to  his  backsliding.  When  he  casts  his  eyes  around 
him,  he  should  be  able  to  see  all  that  he  respects,  all 
that  he  admires,  all  that  he  loves,  .kindly  and  anxiously 
pointing  him  onward  and  none  beckoning  him  back  to 
his  former  miserable  *  wallowing  in  the  mire. ' 

"But  it  is  said  by  some  that  men  will  think  and  act 
for  themselves;  that  none  will  disuse  spirits  or  any 
thing  else  because  his  neighbors  do ;  and  that  moral 
influence  is  not  that  powerful  engine  contended  for. 
Let  us  examine  this.  Let  me  ask  the  man  who  would 
maintain  this  position  most'  stiffly  what  compensation 
he  will  accept  to  go  to  church  some  Sunday  and  sit 
during  the  sermon  with  his  wife's  bonnet  upon  his 
head?  Not  a  trifle,  I'll  venture.  And  why  not? 
There  would  be  nothing  irreligious  in  it,  nothing 
immoral,  nothing  uncomfortable — then,  why  not?  Is 
it  not  because  there  would  be  something  egregiously 
unfashionable  in  it?  Then  it  is  the  influence  of  fash 
ion;  and  what  is  the  influence  of  fashion  but  the  influ 
ence  that  other  people's  actions  have  on  our  own 
actions — the  strong  inclination  each  of  us  feels  to  do  as 
we  see  all  of  our  neighbors  do?  Nor  is  the  influence 
of  fashion  confined  to  any  particular  thing  or  class  of 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          30$ 

things.  It  is  just  as  strong  on  one  subject  as  another. 
Let  us  make  it  as  unfashionable  to  withhold  our 
names  from  the  temperance  pledge  as  for  husbands 
to  wear  their  wives'  bonnets  to  church,  and  the 
instances  will  be  just  as  rare  in  the  one  case  as  the 
other. 

"  'But,'  some  say,  'we  are  no  drunkards,  and  we 
shall  not  acknowledge  ourselves  such  by  joining  a 
reformed  drunkards'  society,  whatever  our  influence 
might  be. '  Surely,  no  Christian  will  adhere  to  this 
objection. 

"If  they  believe  as  they  profess,  that  Omnipotence 
condescended  to  take  on  Himself  the  form  of  sinful 
man,  and  as  such  to  die  an  ignominious  death  for  their 
sakes,  surely  they  will  not  refuse  submission  to  the 
infinitely  lesser  condescension  for  the  temporal  and 
perhaps  eternal  salvation  of  a  large,  erring,  and  unfor 
tunate  class  of  their  fellow  creatures.  Nor  is  the  con 
descension  very  great.  In  my  judgment  such  of  us  as 
have  never  fallen  victims  have  been  spared  more  from 
the  absence  of  appetites  than  from  any  mental  or  moral 
superiority  over  those  who  have.  Indeed,  I  believe, 
if  we  take  habitual  drunkards  as  a  class,  their  heads 
and  their  hearts  will  bear  an  advantageous  comparison 
with  those  of  any  other  class. 

"There  seems  to  have  ever  been  a  proneness  in  the 
brilliant  and  warm-blooded  to  fall  into  this  vice — the 
demon  of  intemperance  ever  seems  to  have  delighted 
in  sucking  the  blood  of  genius  and  generosity.  What 
one  of  us  but  can  call  to  mind  some  relative  more 
promising  in  youth  than  all  his  fellows,  who  has  fallen 
a  sacrifice  to  his  rapacity?  He  ever  seems  to  have 
gone  forth  like  the  Egyptian  angel  of  death,  commis- 


3io          LINCOLN'S   GREAT    SPEECHES. 

sioned  to  siay,  if  not  the  first,  the  fairest  born  of  every 
family.  Shall  he  now  be  arrested  in  his  desolating 
career?  In  that  arrest  all  can  give  aid  that  will,  and 
who  shall  be  excused  that  can  and  will  not?  Far 
around  as  human  breath  has  ever  blown,  he  keeps  our 
fathers,  our  brothers,  our  sons,  and  our  friends  pros 
trate  in  the  chains  of  moral  death.  To  all  the  living 
everywhere  we  cry:  'Come,  sound  the  moral  trump, 
that  these  may  rise  and  stand  up  an  exceeding  great 
army. '  *  Come  from  the  four  winds,  O  Breath !  and 
breathe  upon  these  slain,  that  they  may  live. '  If  the 
relative  grandeur  of  revolutions  shall  be  estimated  by 
the  great  amount  of  human  misery  they  alleviate,  and 
the  small  amount  they  inflict,  then,  indeed,  will  this  be 
the  grandest  the  world  has  ever  seen. 

"Of  our  political  revolution  of  1776,  we  are  all  justly 
proud.  It  has  given  us  a  degree  of  political  freedom 
far  exceeding  that  of  any  other  nation  of  the  earth. 
In  it  the  world  has  found  a  solution  of  the  long-mooted 
problem  as  to  the  capability  of  man  to  govern  himself. 
In  it  was  the  germ  that  has  vegetated,  and  still  is  to 
grow  and  expand  into  the  universal  liberty  of  mankind. 

"But  with  all  these  glorious  results,  past,  present, 
and  to  come,  it  has  its  evils.  It  breathed  forth  famine, 
swam  in  blood,  and  rode  in  fire;  and  long,  and  long 
after,  the  orphan's  cry  and  the  widow's  wail  continued 
to  break  the  sad  silence  that  ensued.  These  were  the 
price,  the  inevitable  price,  paid  for  the  blessing  it 
bought. 

"Turn  now  to  the  temperance  revolution.  In  it  we 
shall  find  a  stronger  bondage  broken,  a  viler  sla.very 
manumitted,  a  greater  tyrant  deposed — in  it,  more  of 
want  eupplied,  more  disease  healed,  more  sorrow 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          3" 

assuaged.  By  it,  no  orphans  starving,  no  widows 
weeping;  by  it,  none  wounded  in  feeling,  none  injured 
in  interest.  Even  the  dram-maker  and  seller  will 
have  glided  into  other  occupations  so  gradually  as 
never  to  have  felt  the  change,  and  will  stand  ready  to 
join  all  others  in  the  universal  song  of  gladness.  And 
what  a  noble  ally  this  to  the  cause  of  political  feeling ; 
with  such  an  aid,  its  march  cannot  fail  to  be  on  and  on, 
till  every  son  of  earth  shall  drink  in  rich  fruition  the 
sorrow-quenching  draughts  of  perfect  liberty!  Happy 
day,  when,  all  appetite  controlled,  all  passion  subdued, 
all  matter  subjugated,  mind,  all- conquering  mind, 
shall  live  and  move,  the  monarch  of  the  world !  Glor 
ious  consummation!  Hail,  fall  of  fury!  Reign  of 
reason,  all  hail ! 

"And  when  the  victory  shall  be  complete — when 
there  shall  be  neither  a  slave  nor  a  drunkard  on  the 
earth — how  proud  the  title  of  that  land,  which  may 
truly  claim  to  be  the  birthplace  and  the  cradle  of  both 
those  revolutions  that  shall  have  ended  in  that  victory! 
How  nobly  distinguished  that  people  who  shall  have 
planted  and  nurtured  to  maturity  both  the  political  and 
moral  freedom  of  their  species! 

"This  is  the  one  hundred  and  tenth  anniversary  of 
the  birthday  of  Washington.  We  are  met  to  celebrate 
this  day.  Washington  is  the  mightiest  name  of  earth 
— long  since  mightiest  in  the  cause  of  civil  liberty,  still 
mightiest  in  moral  reformation.  On  that  name  a 
eulogy  is  expected.  It  cannot  be.  To  add  brightness 
to  the  sun  or  glory  to  the  name  of  Washington  is  alike 
impossible.  Let  none  attempt  it.  In  solemn  awe 
pronounce  the  name,  and  in  its  naked,  deathless 
splendor  leave  it  shining  on." 


3i2          LINCOLN'S   GREAT    SPEECHES. 

THE  BALLOT  VS.  THE  BULLET. 

Delivered  to  a  delegation  at  Springfield,  111.,  that 
proposed  to  visit  Kansas  Territory  in  the  physical 
defense  of  freedom,  in  1856.  Hon.  W.  H.  Herndon 
was  in  this  delegation : 

"Friends :  I  agree  with  you  in  Providence.  I  believe 
in  the  providence  of  most  men,  the  largest  purse,  and 
the  longest  cannon.  You  are  in  the  minority — in  a 
sad  minority;  and  you  can't  hope  to  succeed,  reason 
ing  from  all  human  experience.  You  would  rebel 
against  the  Government,  and  redden  your  hands  in  the 
blood  of  your  countrymen.  If  you  are  in  the  minority, 
as  you  are,  you  can't  succeed.  I  say  again  and  again, 
against  the  Government,  with  a  gi'eat  majority  of  its 
best  citizens  backing  it,  and  when  they  have  the  most 
men,  the  longest  purse,  and  the  biggest  cannon,  you 
can't  succeed.  If  you  have  the  majority,  as  some  say 
you  have,  you  can  succeed  with  the  ballot,  throwing 
away  the  bullet.  You  can  peaceably  then  redeem  the 
Government,  and  preserve  the  liberties  of  mankind, 
through  your  votes  and  voice  and  moral  influence. 

"Let  there  be  peace.  In  a  democracy,  where  a 
majority  rule  by  the  ballot  through  the  forms  of  law, 
these  physical  rebellions  and  bloody  resistances  are 
radically  wrong,  unconstitutional,  and  are  treason. 
Better  bear  the  ills  you  have  than  to  fly  to  those  you 
know  not  of.  Our  own  Declaration  of  Independence 
says  that  the  government  long  established,  for  trivial 
causes  should  not  be  resisted.  Revolutionize  through 
the  ballot-box,  and  restore  the  government  once  more 
to  the  affections  and  hearts  of  men,  by  making  it 
express,  as  it  was  intended  to  do,  the  highest  spirit  of 
iustice  and  liberty. 


'AND  COULDN'T  YE   PUT   A  LITTLE  BRANDY  IN  ALL  UNBEKNOWN  TO 

MYSELF?" 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          315 

44  Your  attempt,  if  there  be  such,  to  resist  the  laws 
of  Kansas  by  force,  is  criminal  and  wicked;  and  all 
your  feeble  attempts  will  be  follies,  and  end  in  bring 
ing  sorrow  on  your  heads,  and  ruin  the  cause  you 
would  freely  die  to  preserve." 


LINCOLN'S     FIRST     SPEECH     IN     THE     SENATORIAL 

CAMPAIGN— "THE   HOUSE-DIVIDED-AGAINST- 

ITSELF  SPEECH." 

Delivered  at  Springfield,  111.,  June  6,  1858,  before 
the  Republican  State  Convention.  It  is  known  as  one 
of  Lincoln's  greatest  speeches: 

"Gentlemen  of  the  Convention:  If  we  could  first 
know  where  we  are,  and  whither  we  are  tending,  we 
could  better  judge  what  to  do,  and  how  to  do  it.  We 
are  now  far  into  the  fifth  year,  since  a  policy  was 
initiated  with  the  avowed  object  and  confident  promise 
of  putting  an  end  to  slavery  agitation.  Under  the 
operation  of  that  policy,  that  agitation  has  not  ceased, 
but  has  constantly  augmented.  In  my  opinion,  it  will 
not  cease  until  a  crisis  shall  have  been  reached  and 
passed.  'A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand.' 
I  believe  this  Government  cannot  endure  permanently 
half  slave  and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect  the  Union  to 
be  dissolved — I  do  not  expect  the  house  to  fall — but  1 
do  expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided.  It  will  become 
all  one  thing  or  all  the  other.  Either  the  opponents 
of  slavery  will  arrest  the  further  spread  of  it,  and 


316         LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

place  it  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the  belief 
that  it  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction;  or  its 
advocates  will  push  it  forward,  till  it  shall  become  alike 
lawful  in  all  the  States,  old  as  well  as  new — North  as 
well  as  South. 

"Have  we  no  tendency  to  the  latter  condition? 

* '  Let  any  one  who  doubts,  carefully  contemplate  that 
now  almost  complete  legal  combination — piece  of 
machinery,  so  to  speak — compounded  of  the  Nebraska 
doctrine  and  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  Let  him  con 
sider  not  only  what  work  the  machinery  is  adapted  to 
do,  and  how  well  adapted;  but  also  let  him  study  the 
history  of  its  construction,  and  trace,  if  he  can,  or 
rather  fail,  if  he  can,  to  trace  the  evidence  of  design 
and  concert  of  action  among  its  chief  architects,  from 
the  beginning. 

A  FEW  IMPORTANT  FACTS. 

"The  year  of  1844  found  slavery  excluded  from  more 
than  half  the  States  by  State  Constitutions,  and  from 
most  of  the  national  territory  by  Congressional  prohi 
bition.  Four  days  later  commenced  the  struggle  which 
ended  in  repealing  that  Congressional  prohibition. 
This  opened  all  the  national  territory  to  slavery,  and 
was  the  first  point  gained. 

"But,  so  far,  Congress  had  acted;  and  an  indorse 
ment  by  the  people,  real  or  apparent,  was  indispen 
sable,  to  save  the  point  already  gained,  and  give  chance 
for  more. 

"This  necessity  had  not  been  overlooked;  but  had 
been  provided  for,  as  well  as  might  be,  in  the  notable 
argument  of  'squatter  sovereignty,'  otherwise  called 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          317 

*sacred  right  of  self-government,'  which  latter  phrase, 
though  expressive  of  the  only  rightful  basis  of  any 
government,  was  so  perverted  in  this  attempted  use 
of  it  as  to  amount  to  just  this: 

" That,  if  any  one  man  choose  to  enslave  another,  no 
third  man  shall  be  allowed  to  object.  That  argument 
was  incorporated  into  the  Nebraska  bill  itself,  in  the 
language  which  follows: 

"  'It  being  the  true  intent  and  meaning  of  this  act 
not  to  legislate  slavery  into  any  Territory  or  State,  nor 
to  exclude  it  therefrom;  but  to  leave  the  people 
thereof  perfectly  free  to  form  and  regulate  their 
domestic  institutions  in  their  own  way,  subject  only  to 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. ' 

"Then  opened  the  roar  of  loose  declamation  in  favor 
of  'squatter  sovereignty,'  and  'sacred  right  of  self- 
government.'  'But,'  said  opposition  members,  'let  us 
amend  the  bill  so  as  to  expressly  declare  that  the 
people  of  the  territory  may  exclude  slavery.'  'Not 
we, '  said  the  friends  of  the  measure ;  and  down  they 
voted  the  amendment. 

"While  the  Nebraska  bill  was  passing  through  Con 
gress,  a  law  case  involving  the  question  of  a  negro's 
freedom,  by  reason  of  his  owner  having  voluntarily 
taken  him  first  into  a  free  State  and  then  into  a  Terri 
tory  covered  by  the  Congressional  prohibition,  and  held 
him  as  a  slave  for  along  time  in  each,  was  passing 
through  the  United  States  District  Court  for  the  district 
of  Missouri ;  and  both  Nebraska  bill  and  law  suit  were 
brought  to  a  decision  in  the  same  month  of  May,  1854. 
The  negro's  name  was  'Dred  Scott/  which  name  now 
designates  the  decision  finally  made  in  the  case. 

"Before  the  then  next  Presidential  election,  the  case 


3i8          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

came  to,  and  was  argued  in,  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States,  but  the  decision  of  it  was  deferred  until 
after  the  election. 

"  Still,  before  the  election,  Mr.  Trumbull,  on  the 
floor  of  the  Senate,  requested  the  leading  advocate  of 
the  Nebraska  Bill  to  state  his  opinion  whether  the 
people  of  a  territory  can  constitutionally  exclude  slav 
ery  from  their  limits;  and  the  latter  answers:  'That  is 
a  question  for  the  Supreme  Court. ' 

"The  election  came.  Mr.  Buchanan  was  elected, 
and  the  endorsement,  such  as  it  was,  secured.  That 
was  the  second  point  gained.  The  endorsement,  how 
ever,  fell  short  of  a  clear  popular  majority  of  nearly 
four  hundred  thousand  votes,  and  so,  perhaps,  was  not 
overwhelmingly  reliable  and  satisfactory.  The  out 
going  President,  in  the  last  annual  message,  as 
impressively  as  possible  echoed  back  upon  the  people 
the  weight  and  authority  of  the  endorsement.  The 
Supreme  Court  met  again;  did  not  announce  their 
decision,  but  ordered  a  re-argument.  The  next  Presi 
dential  inauguration  came,  and  still  no  decision  of  the 
court;  but  the  incoming  President  in  his  inaugural 
address  fervently  exhorted  the  people  to  abide  by  the 
forthcoming  decision,  whatever  it  might  be.  Then, 
in  a  few  days,  came  the  decision. 

"The  reputed  author  of  the  Nebraska  bill  finds  an 
early  occasion  to  make  a  speech  at  this  capital  indors 
ing  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  and  vehemently  denounc 
ing  all  opposition  to  it.  The  new  President,  too, 
seizes  the  early  occasion  of  the  Sillman  letter  to 
indorse  and  strongly  commend  that  decision,  and  to 
express  his  astonishment  that  any  different  view  had 
ever  been  entertained. 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          319 

VOTING  IT  UP  OR  DOWN. 

"At  length  a  squabble  sprang  up  between  the  Presi 
dent  and  the  author  of  the  Nebraska  bill,  on  the  mere 
question  of  fact,  whether  the  Lecompton  Constitution 
was  or  was  not,  in  any  just  sense,  made  by  the  people 
of  Kansas;  and  in  that  quarrel  the  latter  declares  that 
all  he  wants  is  a  fair  vote  for  the  people,  and  that  he 
cares  not  whether  slavery  be  voted  down  or  up.  I  do 
not  understand  his  declaration  that  he  cares  not 
whether  slavery  be  voted  down  or  up  to  be  intended 
by  him  other  than  an  apt  definition  of  the  policy  he 
would  impress  upon  the  public  mind — the  principle  for 
which  he  declares  he  has  suffered  so  much,  and  is  ready 
to  suffer  to  the  end.  And  well  may  he  cling  to  that 
principle.  If  he  has  any  parental  feelings,  well  may 
he  cling  to  it.  That  principle  is  the  only  shred  left  of 
his  original  Nebraska  doctrine. 

"Under  the  Dred  Scott  decision  squatter  sover 
eignty  squatted  out  of  existence,  tumbled  down  like 
temporary  scaffolding — like  the  mould  at  the  foundry, 
served  through  one  blast  and  fell  back  into  loose  sand 
— helped  to  carry  an  election  and  then  was  kicked  to 
the  winds.  His  late  joint  struggle  with  the  Repub 
licans,  against  the  Lecompton  Constitution,  involves 
nothing  of  the  original  Nebraska  doctrine.  That 
struggle  was  made  on  a  point — the  right  of  the  people 
to  make  their  own  constitution — upon  which  he  and  the 
Republicans  have  never  differed. 

"The  several  points  of  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  in 
connection  with  Senator  Douglas'  care-not  policy, 
constitute  the  piece  of  machinery,  in  its  present  state 
of  advancement.  This  was  the  third  point  gained. 


520         LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

WORKING  POINTS. 

"The  working  points  of  that  machinery  are: 

"First.  That  no  negro  slave,  imported  as  such  from 
Africa,  and  no  descendant  of  s  ach  slave,  can  ever  be  a 
citizen  of  any  State,  in  the,  sense  of  that  term  as  used 
in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  This  point 
is  made  in  order  to  deprive  the  negro,  in  every  possible 
event,  of  the  benefit  of  that  provision  of  the  United 
States  Constitution  which  declares  that  'the  citizens  of 
each  State  shall  be  entitled  to  all  the  privileges  and 
immunities  of  citizens  in  the  several  States. ' 

"Secondly.  That,  'subject  to  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States, '  neither  Congress  nor  a  Territorial  Leg 
islature  can  exclude  slavery  from  any  United  States 
territory.  This  point  is  made  in  order  that  individual 
men  may  fill  up  the  Territories  with  slaves,  without 
danger  of  losing  them  as  property,  and  thus  to 
enhance  the  chances  of  permanency  to  the  institutions 
through  all  the  future. 

"Thirdly.  That,  whether  the  holding  of  the  negro 
in  actual  slavery  in  a  free  State  makes  him  free,  as 
against  the  holder,  the  United  States  courts  will  not 
decide,  but  will  leave  to  be  decided  by  the  courts  of  any 
slave  State  the  negro  may  be  forced  into  by  the  master. 

"This  point  is  made,  not  to  be  pressed  immediately, 
but,  if  acquiesced  in  for  a  while,  and  apparently 
indorsed  by  the  people  at  an  election,  then,  to  sustain 
the  logical  conclusion  that  what  Dred  Scott's  master 
might  lawfully  do  with  Dred  Scott,  in  the  free  State  of 
Illinois,  every  other  master  may  lawfully  do  with  any 
other  one,  or  one  thousand  slaves,  in  any  other  free 
State. 


LINCOLN'S  GREAT  SPEECHES          3*' 

"Auxiliary  to  all  this,  and  working  hand  in  hand 
vvith  it,  the  Nebraska  doctrine,  or  what  is  left  of  it,  is 
to  educate  and  mold  public  opinion,  at  least  northern 
public  opinion,  not  to  care  whether  slavery  is  voted 
down  or  up.  This  shows  exactly  where  we  now  are; 
and  partially,  also,  whither  we  are  tending. 


A  STRING  OF  HISTORICAL  FACTS. 

4 'It  will  throw  additional  light  on  the  latter,  to  go 
back  and  run  the  mind  over  the  string  of  historical 
facts  already  stated.  Several  things  will  now  appear 
less  dark  and  mysterious  than  they  did  when  they  were 
transpiring.  The  people  were  to  be  left  'perfectly 
free,'  subject  only  to  the  Constitution. 

"What  the  Constitution  had  to  do  with  it  outsiders 
could  not  then  see.  Plainly  enough,  now,  it  was  an 
exactly  fitted  niche,  for  the  Dred  Scott  decision  to 
afterward  come  in,  and  declare  the  perfect  freedom  of 
the  people  to  be  just  no  freedom  at  all.  Why  was  the 
amendment,  expressly  declaring  the  right  of  the 
people,  voted  down?  Plain  enough  now;  the  adoption 
of  it  would  have  spoiled  the  niche  for  the  Dred  Scott 
decision.  Why  was  the  court  decision  held  up.  Why 
even  a  Senator's  individual  opinion  withheld,  till  after 
the  presidential  election?  Plainly  enough  now;  the 
speaking  out  then  would  have  damaged  the  perfectly 
free  argument  upon  which  the  election  was  to  be 
carried.  Why  the  outgoing  President's  felicitation  on 
the  indorsement?  Why  the  delay  of  a  re-argument? 
Why  the  incoming  President's  advance  exhortation  in 
favor  of  the  decision?  These  things  look  like  the 


322          LINCOLN'S   GREAT    SPEECHES. 

cautious  patting  and  petting  of  a  spirited  horse 
preparatory  to  mounting  him,  when  it  is  dreaded  that 
he  may  give  the  rider  a  fall.  And  why  the  hasty 
after-indorsement  of  the  decision  by  the  President  and 
others? 

"We  cannot  absolutely  know  that  all  these  exact 
adaptations  are  the  result  of  preconcert.  But  when 
we  see  a  lot  of  framed  timbers,  different  portions  of 
which  we  know  have  been  gotten  out  at  different  times 
and  places  by  different  workmen — Stephen,  Franklin, 
Roger,  and  James,  for  instance — and  when  we  see 
these  timbers  joined  together,  and  see  they  exactly 
make  the  frame  of  a  house  or  mill,  all  the  tenons  and 
mortices  exactly  adapted,  and  all  the  lengths  and  pro 
portions  of  the  different  pieces  exactly  adapted  to  their 
respective  places,  and  not  a  piece  too  many  or  too  few 
— not  omitting  even  scaffolding — or,  if  a  single  piece 
be  lacking,  we  see  the  place  in  the  frame,  exactly 
fitted  and  prepared  yet  to  bring  such  a  piece  in — in 
such  a  case,  we  find  it  impossible  not  to  believe  that 
Stephen  and  Franklin  and  Roger  and  James  all  under 
stood  one  another  from  the  beginning,  and  all  worked 
upon  a  common  plan  or  draft  drawn  before  the  first 
blow  was  struck. 

POWER  OF  A  STATE. 

"It  should  not  be  overlooked,  that,  by  the  Nebraska 
bill,  the  people  of  a  State  as  well  as  Territory,  were  to 
be  left  'perfectly  free,  subject  only  to  the  Constitution.' 
Why  mention  a  State?  They  were  legislating  for  Terri 
tories,  and  not  for  or  about  States. 

"Certainly,  the  people  of  a  State  are,  or  ought  to  be, 
subject*o  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States;  but 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT    SPEECHES.          323 

why  is  mention  of  this  lugged  into  this  merely  terri 
torial  law?  But  why  are  the  people  of  a  Territory  and 
the  people  of  a  State  therein  lumped  together,  and 
their  relation  to  the  Constitution  therein  treated  as 
being  precisely  the  same?  While  the  opinions  of  the 
court,  by  Chief  Justice  Taney,  in  the  Dred  Scott  case, 
and  the  separate  opinions  of  all  the  concurring  judges, 
expressly  declare  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  neither  permits  Congress  nor  a  Territorial  Legis 
lature  to  exclude  slavery  from  any  United  States  Ter 
ritory,  they  all  omit  to  declare  whether  or  not  the  same 
Constitution  permits  a  State,  or  the  people  of  a  State, 
to  exclude  it, 

"Possibly,  that  is  a  mere  omission;  but  who  can  be 
quite  sure,  if  McLean  or  Curtis  had  sought  to  get  into 
the  opinion  a  declaration  of  unlimited  power  in  the 
people  of  a  State  to  exclude  slavery  from  their  limits, 
just  as  Chase  and  Mace  sought  to  get  such  declaration, 
in  behalf  of  the  people  of  a  Territory,  into  the 
Nebraska  bill;  I  ask,  who  can  be  quite  sure  that  it 
would  not  have  been  voted  down  in  the  one  case  as  it 
has  been  in  the  other? 

"The  nearest  approach  to  the  point  of  declaring  the 
power  of  a  State  over  slavery,  is  made  by  Judge  Nel 
son.  He  approaches  it  more  than  once,  using  the 
precise  idea  and  almost  the  language,  too,  of  the 
Nebraska  act.  On  one  occasion,  his  exact  language  is, 
'Except  in  cases  where  the  power  is  restrained  by  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  the  law  of  the  State 
is  supreme  over  the  subject  of  slavery  within  its  juris 
diction.' 

14 In  what  cases  the  power  of  the  States  is  so 
restrained  by  the  United  States  Constitution  is  left  an 


324         LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

open  question,  precisely  as  the  same  question  as  to  the 
restraint  on  the  power  of  the  Territories  was  left  open 
in  the  Nebraska  act.  Put  this  and  that  together,  and 
we  have  another  nice  little  niche,  which  we  may,  ere 
long,  see  filled  with  another  Supreme  Court  decision, 
declaring  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
does  not  permit  a  State  to  exclude  slavery  from  its 
limits.  And  this  may  especially  be  expected  if  the 
doctrine  of  'care  not  whether  slavery  be  voted  down  or 
up'  shall  gain  upon  the  public  mind  sufficiently  to  give 
promise  that  such  a  decision  can  be  maintained  when 
made. 

44  Such  a  decision  is  all  that  slavery  now  lacks  of 
being  alike  lawful  in  all  the  States.  Welcome  or 
unwelcome,  such  a  decision  is  probably  coming,  and 
will  soon  be  upon  us,  unless  the  power  of  the  present 
political  dynasty  shall  be  met  and  overthrown.  We 
shall  lie  down  pleasantly  dreaming  that  the  people  of 
Missouri  are  on  the  very  verge  of  making  their  State 
free,  and  we  shall  wake  to  the  reality  instead,  that  the 
Supreme  Court  has  made  Illinois  a  slave  State.  To 
meet  and  overthrow  the  power  of  that  dynasty,  is  the 
work  now  before  all  those  who  would  prevent  that  con 
summation.  That  is  what  we  have  to  do.  How  can 
we  best  do  it? 

"A  LIVING  DOG   IS   BETTER  THAN  A   DEAD   LION." 

"  There  are  those  who  denounce  us  openly  to  their 
friends,  and  yet  whisper  us  softly  that  Senator  Douglas 
is  the  aptest  instrument  there  is  with  which  to  effect 
that  object.  They  wish  us  to  infer  all  from  the  fact 
that  he  now  has  a  little  quarrel  with  the  present  head 
of  the  dynasty;  and  that  he  has  regularly  voted  with 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT    SPEECHES.          325 

us  on  a  single  point,  upon  which  he  and  we  have  never 
differed.  They  remind  us  that  he  is  a  great  man,  and 
that  the  largest  of  us  are  very  small  ones.  Let  this  be 
granted.  But  *a  living  dog  is  better  than  a  dead  lion,' 
for  this  work,  is,  at  least,  a  caged  and  toothless  one. 
How  can  he  oppose  the  advances  of  slavery?  He  don't 
care  anything  about  it.  His  avowed  mission  is 
impressing  the  'public  heart'  to  care  nothing  about  it. 
"A  leading  Douglas  Democratic  newspaper,  treating 
upon  this  subject,  thinks  Douglas's  superior  talent  will 
be  needed  to  resist  the  revival  of  the  African  slave 
trade.  Does  Douglas  believe  an  effort  to  revive  that 
trade  is  approaching?  He  has  not  said  so.  Does  he 
really  think  so?  But,  if  it  is,  how  can  he  resist  it? 
For  years  he  has  labored  to  prove  it  a  sacred  right  of 
white  men  to  take  negro  slaves  into  the  new  Terri 
tories.  Can  he  possibly  show  that  it  is  less  a  sacred 
right  to  buy  them  where  they  can  be  bought  the  cheap 
est?  And  unquestionably  they  can  be  bought  cheaper 
in  Africa  than  Virginia.  He  has  done  all  in  his  power 
to  reduce  the  whole  question  of  slavery  to  one  of  a 
mere  right  of  property;  and,  as  such,  how  can  he 
oppose  the  foreign  slave  trade — how  can  he  refuse 
that  trade  in  that  'property'  shall  be  'perfectly 
free' — unless  he  does  it  as  a  protection  to  the  home 
production?  And  as  the  home  producers  will  probably 
not  ask  the  protection,  he  will  be  wholly  without  a 
ground  of  opposition. 


DOUGLAS  IS  NOT  WITH  US. 

"  Senator  Douglas  holds,  we  know,  that  a  man  may 
rightfully  be  wiser  to-day  than  he  was  yesterday — that 


326         LINCOLN'S  GREAT   SPEECHES, 

he  may  rightfully  change  when  he  finds  himself  wrong. 
But  can  we,  for  that  reason,  run  ahead;  and  infer  that 
he  will  make  any  particular  change  of  which  he  him 
self  has  given  no  intimation?  Can  we  safely  base  our 
actions  upon  any  such  vague  reference?  Now,  as  ever, 
I  wish  not  to  misrepresent  Judge  Douglas's  position, 
question  his  motives,  or  do  aught  that  can  be  personally 
offensive  to  him.  Whenever,  if  ever,  he  and  we  can 
come  together  on  principle  so  that  our  cause  may  have 
assistance  from  his  great  ability,  I  hope  to  have  inter 
posed  no  adventitious  obstacle.  But,  clearly,  he  is  not 
now  with  us — he  does  not  pretend  to  be — he  does  not 
pretend  ever  to  be. 


BUT  WE  SHALL  NOT  FAIL;   THE  VICTORY  IS  SURE. 

"Our  cause,  then,  must  be  intrusted  to,  and  con 
ducted  by,  its  own  undoubted  friends — those  whose 
hands  are  free,  whose  hearts  are  in  the  work — who  do 
care  for  the  result.  Two  years  ago  the  Republicans 
of  the  nation  mustered  over  thirteen  thousand  strong. 
We  did  this  under  the  single  impulse  of  resistance  to  a 
common  danger,  with  every  external  circumstance 
against  us.  Of  strange,  discordant,  and  even  hostile 
elements,  we  gathered  from  the  four  winds,  and 
formed  and  fought  the  battle  through,  under  the  con 
stant  hot  fire  of  a  disciplined,  proud  and  pampered 
enemy.  Did  we  brave  all  then,  to  falter  now?  now, 
when  that  same  enemy  is  wavering,  dissevered  and 
belligerent?  The  result  is  not  doubtful.  We  shall  not 
fail — if  we  stand  firm,  we  shall  not  fail.  Wise  counsels 
may  accelerate,  or  mistakes  delay  it,  but,  sooner  or 
later,  the  victory  is  sure  to  come." 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          327 

DOUGLAS'S    SEVEN    QUESTIONS  —  LINCOLN'S    POSI 
TION  DEFINED  ON  THE  QUESTIONS  OF 
THE  DAY. 

Delivered  at  Freeport,  111.,  July,  1858: 

"Ladies  and  Gentlemen:  On  Saturday  last,  Judge 
Douglas  and  myself  first  met  in  public  discussion. 
He  spoke  an  hour,  I  an  hour  and  a  half,  and  he  replied 
for  half  an  hour.  The  order  is  now  reversed.  I  am 
to  speak  an  hour,  he  an  hour  and  a  half,  and  then  I  an> 
to  reply  for  half  an  hour.  I  propose  to  devote  myself 
during  the  first  hour  to  the  scope  of  what  was  brought 
within  the  range  of  his  half -hour's  speech  at  Ottawa. 
Of  course,  there  was  brought  within  the  scope  of  that 
half-hour's  speech  something  of  his  own  opening 
speech.  In  the  course  of  that  opening  argument 
Judge  Douglas  proposed  to  me  seven  different  interrog 
atories. 

"In  my  speech  of  an  hour  and  a  half,  I  attended  to 
some  other  parts  of  his  speech ;  and  incidentally,  as  I 
thought,  answered  one  of  the  interrogatories  then. 
I  then  distinctly  intimated  to  him  that  I  would  answer 
the  rest  of  his  interrogatories  on  condition  only  that  he 
should  agree  to  answer  as  many  for  me.  He  made  no 
intimation  at  the  time  of  the  proposition,  nor  did  he  in 
his  reply  allude  at  all  to  that  suggestion  of  mine.  I  do 
him  no  injustice  in  saying  that  he  occupied  at  least 
half  of  his  reply  in  dealing  with  me  as  though  I  had 
refused  to  answer  his  interrogatories.  I  now  propose 
that  I  will  answer  any  of  the  interrogatories  upon  con 
dition  that  he  will  answer  questions  from  me  not 
exceeding  the  same  number.  I  give  him  an  oppor 
tunity  to  respond.  I  now  say  that  I  will  answer  his 
interrogatories  whether  he  answers  mine  or  not 


328          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

[applause] ;    and  that  after  I  have  done  so,  I  will  pro- 
potmd  mine  to  him.     [Applause.] 

"I  have  supposed  myself,  since  the  organization  of 
the  Republican  party  at  Blooming-ton,  in  May,  1856, 
bound  as  a  party  man  of  the  platform  of  the  party, 
then  and  since.  If  in  any  interrogatories  which  I 
shall  answer  I  go  beyond  the  scope  of  what  is  in  these 
platforms,  it  will  be  perceived  that  no  one  is  respon 
sible  but  myself. 

"Having  said  this  much,  I  will  take  up  the  Judge's 
interrogatories  as  I  find  them  in  the  Chicago  Times, 
and  answer  them  seriatim.  In  order  that  there  may 
be  no  mistake  about  it,  I  have  copied  the  interroga 
tories  in  writing,  and  also  my  answers  to  them.  The 
first  one  of  these  interrogatories  is  in  these  words : 

"Q.  i.  'I  desire  to  know  whether  Lincoln  to-day 
stands,  as  he  did  in  1854,  in  favor  of  the  unconditional 
repeal  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law?' 

"A.  I  do  not  now,  nor  never  did,  stand  in  favor 
of  the  unconditional  repeal  of  the  Fugitive  Slave 
Law. 

"Q.  2.  'I  desire  him  to  answer  whether  he  stands 
pledged  to-day,  as  he  did  in  1854,  against  any  more 
slave  States  coming  into  the  Union,  even  if  the  people 
want  them?' 

"A.  I  do  not  now,  nor  never  did,  stand  pledged 
against  the  admission  of  any  more  slave  States  into  the 
Union. 

"Q.  3.  'I  want  to  know  whether  he  stands  pledged 
against  the  admission  of  a  new  State  into  the  Union 
with  such  a  Constitution  as  the  people  of  that  State 
may  see  fit  to  make?' 

"A.   I  do  not  stand  against  the  admission  of  a  new 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT    SPEECHES,          329 

State  into  the  Union  with  such  a  Constitution  as  the 
people  of  that  State  may  see  fit  to  make. 

"Q.  4.  'I  want  to  know  whether  he  stands  to-day 
pledged  to  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District  of 
Columbia?' 

"A.  I  do  not  stand  to-day  pledged  to  the  abolition 
of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia. 

**Q.  5.  'I  desire  him  to  answer  whether  he  stands 
pledged  to  the  prohibition  of  the  slave  trade  between 
the  different  States?' 

"A.  I  do  not  stand  pledged  to  the  prohibition  of 
the  slave  trade  between  the  different  States. 

"Q.  6.  'I  desire  to  know  whether  he  stands  pledged 
to  prohibit  slavery  in  all  the  Territories  of  the  United 
States,  North  as  well  as  South  of  the  Missouri  Com 
promise  line?' 

"A.  I  am  impliedly,  if  not  expressedly,  pledged  to  a 
belief  in  the  right  and  duty  of  Congress  to  prohibit 
slavery  in  the  United  States  Territories.  [Great 
applause.  ] 

"Q.  7.  'I  desire  to  know  whether  he  is  opposed  to 
the  acquisition  of  any  new  territory  unless  slavery  is 
first  prohibited  therein?' 

"A.  I  am  not  generally  opposed  to  honest  acquisition 
of  territory ;  and,  in  any  given  case,  I  would  or  would 
not  oppose  such  acquisition,  accordingly  as  I  might 
think  such  acquisition  would  or  would  not  agitate  the 
slavery  question  among  ourselves. 

"Now,  my  friends,  it  will  be  perceived  upon  exam 
ination  of  these  questions  and  answers,  that  so  far  I 
have  only  answered  that  I  was  not  pledged  to  that  or 
the  other  thing.  The  Judge  has  not  framed  his  inter 
rogatories  to  ask  me  anything  more  than  this,  and  I 


330         LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

have  answered  in  strict  accordance  with  his  inter 
rogatories,  and  have  answered  truly  that  I  am  not 
pledged  at  all  upon  any  of  the  points  to  which  I  have 
answered.  But  I  am  not  disposed  to  hang  upon  the 
exact  form  of  his  interrogatory.  I  am  rather  disposed 
to  take  up  at  least  some  of  these  questions,  and  state 
what  I  really  think  upon  them. 

LINCOLN'S  POSITION   MORE  FULLY  DEFINED. 

"As  to  the  first  one,  in  regard  to  the  Fugitive  Slave 
Law,  I  have  never  hesitated  to  say,  that  I  think,  under 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  the  people  of  the 
Southern  States  are  entitled  to  a  Congressional  slave 
law.  Having  said  that,  I  have  nothing  to  say  in  regard 
to  the  existing  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  farther  than  that  I 
think  it  should  have  been  framed  so  as  to  be  free  from 
some  of  the  objections  that  pertain  to  it,  without 
lessening  its  efficiency.  And,  inasmuch,  as  we  are  not 
in  agitation  upon  the  general  question  of  slavery. 

"In  regard  to  the  other  question,  of  whether  I  am 
pledged  to  the  admission  of  any  more  slave  States  into 
the  Union,  I  state  to  you  frankly  that  I  would  be 
exceedingly  sorry  ever  to  be  put  in  a  position  of  hav 
ing  to  pass  upon  that  question.  I  should  be  exceed 
ingly  glad  to  know  that  there  would  never  be  another 
slave  State  admitted  into  the  Union;  but  I  must  add, 
that  if  slavery  shall  be  kept  out  of  the  Territories  dur 
ing  the  Territorial  existence  of  any  one  given  Terri 
tory,  and  then  the  people  shall,  having  a  fair  chance  in 
a  clear  field,  when  they  come  to  adopt  the  Constitution, 
do  such  an  extraordinary  thing  as  to  adopt  the  Consti 
tution,  uninfluenced  by  the  actual  presence  of  the 
institution  among  them,  I  see  no  alternative,  if  we  own 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT    SPEECHES.          331 

the  country,  but  to  admit  them  into  the  Union.  [Ap 
plause.] 

' '  The  third  interrogatory  is  answered  by  the  answer  to 
the  second, it  being,  as  I  conceive,  the  same  as  the  second. 

"The  fourth  one  is  in  regard  to  the  abolition  of  slav 
ery  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  In  relation  to  that,  I 
have  my  mind  very  distinctly  made  up.  I  should  be 
exceedingly  glad  to  see  slavery  abolished  in  the  Dis 
trict  of  Columbia.  I  believe  that  Congress  has  Con 
stitutional  power  to  abolish  it.  Yet,  as  a  member  of 
Congress,  I  should  not  with  my  present  views  be  in 
favor  of  endeavoring  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  District 
of  Columbia,  unless  it  would  be  upon  these  conditions. 
First,  that  the  abolition  should  be  gradual;  second, 
that  it  should  be  on  a  vote  of  the  majority  of  qualified 
voters  of  the  District;  and  third,  that  a  compensa 
tion  should  be  made  to  unwilling  owners.  With  these 
three  conditions,  I  confess  that  I  would  be  exceedingly 
glad  to  see  Congress  abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of 
Columbia,  and,  in  the  language  of  Henry  Clay,  'sweep 
from  our  Capital  that  foul  blot  upon  our  Nation. ' 

44  In  regard  to  the  fifth  interrogatory,  I  must  say,  that, 
as  to  the  question  of  abolition  of  the  slave  trade  between 
the  different  States,  I  can  truly  answer,  as  I  have,  that 
I  am  pledged  to  nothing  about  it.  It  is  a  subject  to 
which  I  have  not  given  that  mature  consideration  that 
would  make  me  feel  authorized  to  state  a  position  so  as 
to  hold  myself  entirely  bound  by  it.  In  other  words, 
that  question  has  never  been  prominently  enough 
before  me  to  induce  me  to  investigate  whether  we 
really  have  the  constitutional  power  to  do  it.  I  could 
investigate  if  I  had  sufficient  time  to  bring  myself  to  a 
conclusion  upon  that  subject;  but  I  have  not  done  so; 


•332          LINCOLN'S    GREAT    SPEECHES. 

and  I  say  so  frankly  to  you  here,  and  to  Judge  Douglas. 
I  must  say,  however,  that  if  I  should  be  of  the  opinion 
that  Congress  does  possess  the  Constitutional  power  to 
abolish  slave  trading  among  the  different  States,  I 
should  not  still  be  in  favor  of  that  power  unless  upon 
some  conservative  principle,  as  I  conceive  it,  akin  to 
what  I  have  said  in  relation  to  the  abolition  of  slavery 
in  the  District  of  Columbia. 

"My  answer  as  to  whether  I  desire  that  slavery 
should  be  prohibited  in  all  Territories  of  the  United 
States,  is  full  and  explicit  within  itself,  and  cannot  be. 
made  clearer  by  any  comment  of  mine.  So  I  suppose, 
in  regard  to  the  question  whether  I  am  opposed  to  the 
acquisition  of  any  more  territory  unless  slavery  is 
abolished,  is  such  that  I  could  add  nothing  by  way  of 
illustration,  or  making  myself  better  understood,  than 
the  answer  which  I  have  placed  in  writing. 

44  Now,  in  all  this,  the  Judge  has  me,  and  he  has  me 
on  the  record.  I  suppose  he  had  flattered  himself  that 
I  was  really  entertaining  one  set  of  opinions  for  one 
place  and  another  set  for  another  place — that  I  was 
afraid  to  say  at  one  time  what  I  uttered  at  another. 
What  I  am  saying  here  I  suppose  I  say  to  a  vast  audi 
ence  in  the  State  of  Illinois,  and  I  believe  I  am  saying 
that  which,  if  it  would  be  offensive  to  any  persons  and 
render  them  enemies  to  myself,  would  be  offensive  to 
persons  in  this  audience.  *" 


A    HUMOROUS  SPEECH  —  LINCOLN     IN    THE     BLACK 
HAWK  WAR. 

/  The  friends  of  General  Cass,  when  that  gentleman 
(was  a  candidate    for  the   Presidency,   endeavored  to 


\~s 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          333 

endow  him  with  a  military  reputation.  Mr.  Lincoln, 
at  that  time  a  representative  in  Congress,  delivered  a 
speech  before  the  House,  which,  in  its  allusion  to  Mr. 
Cass,  was  exquisitely  sarcastic  and  irresistibly  humor 
ous: 

"By  the  way,  Mr.  Speaker,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "do 
you  know  I  am  a  military  hero?  Yes,  sir,  in  the  days 
of  the  Black  Hawk  War,  I  fought,  bled,  and  came 
away.  Speaking  of  General  Cass's  career  reminds  me 
of  my  own.  I  was  not  at  Stillman's  defeat,  but  I  was 
about  as  near  it  as  Cass  to  Hull's  surrender;  and  like 
him  I  saw  the  place  very  soon  afterwards.  It  is 
quite  certain  I  did  not  break  my  sword,  for  I  had  none 
to  break,  but  I  bent  my  musket  pretty  badly  on  one 
occasion.  ...  If  General  Cass  went  in  advance  of  me 
picking  whortleberries,  I  guess  I  surpassed  him  in 
charging  upon  the  wild  onion.  If  he  saw  any  live, 
fighting  Indians,  it  was  more  than  I  did,  but  I  had  a 
good  many  bloody  struggles  with  the  mosquitoes,  and 
although  I  never  fainted  from  loss  of  blood,  I  can  truly 
say  that  I  was  often  very  hungry. ' ' 

Mr.  Lincoln  concluded  by  saying  that  if  he  ever 
turned  Democrat  and  should  run  for  the  Presidency, 
he  hoped  they  would  not  make  fun  of  him  by  attempt 
ing  to  make  him  a  military  hero ! 


JOINT   DEBATE   BETWEEN   MR.    DOUGLAS   AND    MR. 

LINCOLN. 
First  Joint  Debate  at  Ottawa,  August  21,  1838. 

MR.  DOUGLAS'S  SPEECH. 

"Ladies  and  Gentlemen:  I  appear  before  you  to-day 
for  the  purpose  of  discussing  the  leading  political 
topics  which  now  agitate  the  public  mind. 


334          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

4 'By  an  arrangement  between  Mr.  Lincoln  and 
myself,  we  are  present  here  to-day  for  the  purpose  of 
having  a  joint  discussion,  as  the  representatives  of  the 
two  great  parties  of  the  State  and  Union,  upon  the 
principles  in  issue  between  these  parties ;  and  this  vast 
concourse  of  people  shows  the  deep  feeling  which  per 
vades  the  public  mind  in  regard  to  the  questions  divid 
ing  us. 

"  Prior  to  1854  this  country  was  divided  into  two  great 
political  parties  known  as  the  Whig  and  Democratic 
parties.  Both  were  national  and  patriotic,  advocated 
principles  that  were  universal  in  their  application. 

"An  old-line  Whig  could  proclaim  his  principles  in 
Louisiana  and  Massachusetts  alike.  Whig  principles 
had  no  boundary  sectional  line — they  were  not  limited 
by  the  Ohio  River,  nor  by  the  Potomac,  nor  by  the 
line  of  the  free  and  slave  States,  but  applied  and  were 
proclaimed  wherever  the  Constitution  ruled,  or  the 
American  flag  waved  over  the  American  soil.  So  it 
was,  and  so  it  is  with  the  great  Democratic  party, 
which,  from  the  days  of  Jefferson  until  this  period,  has 
proved  itself  to  be  the  historic  party  of  this  nation. 

"While  the  Whig  and  Democratic  parties  differed  in 
regard  to  a  bank,  the  tariff  distribution,  the  specie 
circular  and  the  sub-treasury,  they  agreed  on  the  great 
slavery  question,  which  now  agitates  the  Union. 

"I  say  that  the  Whig  party  and  the  Democratic  party 
agreed  on  this  slavery  question,  while  they  differed  on 
those  matters  of  expediency  to  which  I  have  referred. 

"The  Whig  party  and  the  Democratic  party  adopted 
the  Compromise  measures  of  1850  as  the  basis  of  a 
proper  and  just  solution  of  the  slavery  question  in  all 
its  forms. 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          335 

"Clay  was  the  great  leader,  with  Webster  on  his 
right  and  Cass  on  his  left,  and  sustained  by  the 
patriots  in  the  Whig  and  Democratic  ranks,  who  had 
devised  and  enacted  the  Compromise  measure  of  1850. 

"In  1851  the  Whig  party  and  the  Democratic  party 
united  in  Illinois  in  adopting  resolutions  indorsing  and 
approving  the  principles  of  the  Compromise  measure 
of  1850  as  the  proper  adjustment  of  that  question. 

"In  1852,  when  the  Whig  party  assembled  in  conven 
tion  in  Baltimore  for  the  purpose  of  nominating  a  can 
didate  for  the  Presidency,  the  first  thing  it  did  was  to 
declare  the  Compromise  measure  of  1850,  in  substance 
and  in  principle,  a  suitable  adjustment  of  that  ques 
tion.  [Applause.]  My  friends,  silence  will  be  more 
acceptable  to  me  in  the  discussion  of  these  questions 
than  applause.  I  desire  to  address  myself  to  your 
judgment,  your  understanding,  and  your  consciences, 
and  not  to  your  passion  or  your  enthusiasm. 

"When  the  Democratic  Convention  assembled  in 
Baltimore  in  the  same  year,  for  the  purpose  of  nomi 
nating  a  Democratic  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  it 
also  adopted  the  Compromise  measure  of  1850  as  the 
basis  of  Democratic  action.  Thus  you  see,  that  up  to 
1 85  3-54,  the  Whig  party  and  the  Democratic  party 
both  stood  on  the  same  platform  with  regard  to  the 
slavery  question.  That  platform  was  the  right  of  the 
people  of  each  State  and  each  Territory  to  decide  their 
local  and  domestic  institutions  for  themselves,  subject 
only  to  the  Federal  Constitution.  During  the  session 
of  Congress  of  1853-54,  I  introduced  into  the  Senate  of 
the  United  States  a  bill  to  organize  the  Territories  of 
Kansas  and  Nebraska  on  that  principle  which  had  been 
adopted  in  the  Compromise  measure  of  1850,  approved 


336          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

by  the  Whig  party  and  the  Democratic  party  in  Illinois 
in  1851,  and  endorsed  by  the  Whig  party  and  the 
Democratic  party  in  National  Convention  in  1852.  In 
order  that  there  might  be  no  misunderstanding  in  rela 
tion  to  the  principle  involved  in  the  Kansas  and 
Nebraska  bill,  I  put  forth  the  true  intent  and  meaning 
of  the  act  in  these  words:  'It  is  the  true  intent  and 
meaning  of  this  act  not  to  legislate  slavery  into  any 
State  or  Territory,  or  to  exclude  it  therefrom,  but  to 
leave  the  people  perfectly  free  to  form  and  regulate 
their  domestic  institutions  in  their  own  way,  subject  to 
the  Federal  Constitution.' 

"Thus,  you  see,  that  in  1854,  when  the  Kansas  and 
Nebraska  bill  was  brought  into  Congress  for  the  pur 
pose  of  carrying  over  the  principles  which  both  parties 
had  up  to  that  time  endorsed  and  approved,  there  had 
been  no  division  in  this  country  in  regard  to  that  prin 
ciple  except  the  opposition  of  the  Abolitionists.  In 
the  House  of  Representatives  of  the  Illinois  Legis 
lature,  upon  a  resolution  asserting  that  principle,  every 
Whig  and  every  Democrat  in  the  House  voted  in  the 
affirmative,  and  only  four  men  voted  against  it,  and 
those  four  were  old-line  Abolitionists. 

"In  1854,  Mr.  Abraham  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Trumbull 
entered  into  an  arrangement,  one  with  the  other,  and 
each  with  his  respective  friends,  to  dissolve  the  old 
Whig  party  on  the  one  hand,  and  to  dissolve  the  old 
Democratic  party  on  the  other,  and  to  connect  the 
members  of  both  into  an  abolition  party,  under  the 
name  and  disguise  of  the  Republican  party. 

"The  terms  of  that  arrangement  between  Mr.  Lin 
coln  and  Mr.  Trumbull  have  been  published  to  the 
world  by  Mr.  Lincoln's  special  friend,  H.  Matheny, 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          337 

Esq.,  and  they  were  that  Lincoln  should  have  Shield's 
place  in  the  United  States  Senate,  which  was  then 
about  to  become  vacant,  and  that  Mr.  Trumbull  would 
have  my  seat  when  my  term  expired. 

4 'Lincoln  went  to  work  to  abolish  the  old  Whig  party 
all  over  the  State,  pretending  that  he  was  then  as  good 
a  Whig-  as  ever ;  and  Trumbull  went  to  work  in  his  part 
of  the  State  preaching  abolitionism  in  its  milder  and 
lighter  form,  and  trying  to  abolitionize  the  Democratic 
party  and  bring  old  Democrats  handcuffed  and  bound 
hand  and  foot  into  the  abolition  camp. 

"In  pursuance  of  this  arrangement,  the  parties  met 
at  Springfield  in  October,  1854,  and  proclaimed  their 
new  platform. 

"Lincoln  was  to  bring  into  the  abolition  camp  the 
old-line  Whigs,  and  transfer  them  over  to  Giddings, 
Chase,  Fred  Douglass,  and  Parson  Lovejoy,  who  were 
ready  to  receive  them  and  christen  them  in  their  new 
party  faith.  He  laid  down  on  that  occasion  a  platform 
for  their  new  Republican  party,  which  was  to  be  thus 
constructed.  I  have  their  resolutions  of  the  State 
Convention  then  held,  which  was  the  First  mass  State 
Convention  ever  held  in  Illinois  by  the  Black  Repub 
lican  party,  and  I  now  hold  them  in  my  hands,  and  will 
read  a  part  of  them,  and  cause  the  others  to  be  printed. 
Here  are  the  most  important  and  material  resolutions 
of  this  abolition  platform:  [Reading].  Now,  Gentle 
men,  your  Black  Republicans  have  cheered  every  one 
of  those  propositions,  and  yet  I  venture  to  say  that  you 
cannot  get  Mr.  Lincoln  to  come  out  and  say  that  he  is 
now  in  favor  of  each  one  of  them. 

"That  these  propositions,  one  and  all,  constitute  the 
platform  of  the  Black  Republican  party  of  this  day,  I 


338          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

have  no  doubt ;  and  when  you  were  not  aware  for  what 
purpose  I  was  reading  them,  your  Black  Republicans 
cheered  them  as  good  Black  Republican  doctrines. 

"My  object  in  reading  these  resolutions,  was  to  put 
the  question  to  Abraham  Lincoln  this  day,  whether 
he  now  stands  and  will  stand  by  each  article  in  that 
creed,  and  carry  it  out. 

"I  desire  to  know  whether  Mr.  Lincoln  to-day  stands 
as  he  did  in  1854,  in  favor  of  unconditional  repeal  of 
the  Fugitive  Slave  Law. 

"I  desire  him  to  answer  whether  he  stands  pledged 
to-day,  as  he  did  in  1854,  against  the  admission  of  any 
more  slave  States  into  the  Union,  even  if  the  people 
want  them.  I  want  to  know  whether  he  stands  to-day 
pledged  to  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District  of 
Columbia.  I  desire  him  to  answer  whether  he  stands 
pledged  to  the  prohibition  of  the  slave  trade  between 
the  different  States. 

' ' 1  desire  to  know  whether  he  stands  pledged  to  pro 
hibit  slavery  in  all  the  Territories  of  the  United  States, 
North  as  well  as  South  of  the  Missouri  Compromise 
line. 

'  *  I  desire  him  to  answer  whether  he  is  opposed  to  the 
acquisition  of  any  more  territory  unless  slavery  is 
prohibited  therein.  I  want  his  answers  to  these  ques 
tions.  Your  affirmative  cheers  in  favor  of  the  abolition 
platform  are  not  satisfactory.  I  ask  Abraham  Lincoln 
to  answer  these  questions  in  order  that  when  I  trot  him 
down  to  lower  Egypt  I  may  put  the  same  questions  to 
him. 

"My  principles  are  the  same  everywhere. 

"I  can  proclaim  them  alike  in  the  North,  the  South, 
the  East,  and  the  West.  My  principles  will  apply 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          339 

wherever  the  Constitution  prevails  and  the  American 
flag  waves.  I  desire  to  know  whether  Mr.  Lincoln's 
principles  will  bear  transplanting  from  Ottawa  to 
Jonesboro?  I  put  these  questions  to  him  to-day  dis 
tinctly,  and  ask  an  answer.  I  have  a  right  to  an 
answer,  for  I  quote  from  the  platform  of  the  Repub 
lican  party,  made  by  himself  and  others  at  the  time 
that  party  was  formed,  and  the  bargain  made  by 
Lincoln  to  dissolve  and  kill  the  old  Whig  party  and 
transfer  its  members  bound  hand  and  foot  to  the 
abolition  party,  under  the  direction  of  Giddings  and 
Fred  Douglass. 

"In  the  remarks  I  have  made  on  this  platform,  and 
the  position  of  Mr.  Lincoln  upon  it,  I  mean  nothing 
personally  disrespectful  or  unkind  to  any  gentleman. 
I  have  known  him  for  nearly  twenty-five  years.  There 
were  many  points  of  sympathy  between  us  when  we 
first  got  acquainted. 

4 'We  were  both  comparatively  boys,  and  both  strug 
gling  with  poverty  in  a  strange  land. 

"I  was  a  schoolteacher  in  the  town  of  Winchester, 
and  he  a  flourishing  grocery-keeper  in  the  town  of 
Salem. 

14  He  was  more  successful  in  his  occupation  than  I 
was  in  mine,  and  hence  more  fortunate  in  this  world's 
goods. 

41  Lincoln  is  one  of  those  peculiar  men  who  perform 
with  admirable  skill  everything  which  they  undertake. 

"I  made  as  good  a  schoolteacher  as  I  possibly  could, 
and  when  a  cabinet-maker  I  made  a  good  bedstead  and 
tables,  although  my  old  boss  said  I  succeeded  better 
with  bureaus  and  secretaries  than  with  anything  else; 
but  I  believe  that  Lincoln  was  always  more  successful 


340          LINCOLN'S   GREAT    SPEECHES. 

in  business  than  I,  for  his  business  enabled  him  to  get 
into  the  Legislature. 

"I  met  him  there,  however,  and  had  a  sympathy 
with  him,  because  of  the  up-hill  struggle  we  both  had 
in  life. 

"He  was  then  just  as  good  at  telling  an  anecdote  as 
now.  He  could  beat  any  of  the  boys  wrestling,  or  run 
ning  a  foot  race,  in  pitching  quoits,  or  tossing  a  copper  ; 
could  ruin  more  liquor  than  all  the  boys  in  the  town 
together,  and  the  dignity  and  impartiality  with  which 
he  presided  at  a  horse  race  or  fist  fight,  excited  the 
admiration  and  won  the  praise  of  everybody  that  was 
present  and  participated.  I  sympathized  with  him, 
because  he  was  struggling  with  difficulties,  and  so 
was  I. 

"Mr.  Lincoln  served  with  me  in  the  Legislature  in 
1836,  when  we  both  retired  and  he  subsided;  or 
became  submerged,  and  he  was  lost  sight  of  as  a  pub 
lic  man  for  several  years. 

"In  1846,  when  Wilmot  introduced  his  celebrated 
process,  and  the  abolition  tornado  swept  over  the 
country,  Lincoln  again  turned  up  as  a  member  of  Con 
gress  from  the  Sangamon  District.  I  was  then  in  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States,  and  was  glad  to  welcome 
my  old  friend  and  companion.  While  in  Congress  he 
distinguished  himself  by  his  opposition  to  the  Mexican 
War,  taking  the  side  of  the  common  enemy  against  his 
own  country;  and  when  he  returned  home  he  found 
that  the  indignation  of  the  people  followed  him  every 
where,  and  he  was  again  submerged  or  obliged  to 
retire  into  private  life,  forgotten  by  his  former  friends. 

"He  came  up  again  in  1854,  just  in  time  to  make  this 
Abolition  or  Black  Republican  platform,  in  company 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT    SPEECHES.          341 

with  Giddings,  Lovejoy,  Chase,  and  Fred  Douglass, 
for  the  Republican  party  to  stand  upon. 

"Trumbull,  too,  was  one  of  our  own  contemporaries. 
He  was  born  and  raised  in  old  Connecticut,  was  bred  a 
Federalist,  but  removing  to  Georgia  turned  nullifier, 
when  nullification  was  popular,  and  as  soon  as  he  dis 
posed  of  his  clocks  and  wound  up  his  business,  migrated 
to  Illinois,  turned  politician,  and  became  noted  as  the 
author  of  the  scheme  to  repudiate  a  large  portion  of 
the  State  debt  of  Illinois,  which,  if  successful,  would 
have  brought  infamy  and  disgrace  upon  the  fair 
escutcheon  of  our  glorious  State.  The  odium  attached 
to  that  measure  consigned  him  to  oblivion  for  a  time. 
I  helped  to  do  it.  I  walked  to  a  public  meeting  in  the 
hall  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  and  replied  to  his 
repudiating  speeches,  and  resolutions  were  carried 
over  his  head  denouncing  repudiation,  and  asserting 
the  moral  and  legal  obligation  of  Illinois  to  pay  every 
dollar  of  the  debt  she  owed  and  every  bond  that  bore 
her  seal. 

"  Trumbull 's  malignity  has  followed  me  since  I  thus 
defeated  his  nefarious  schemes.  These  two  men,  hav 
ing  formed  this  combination  to  abolitionize  the  old 
Whig  party  and  the  old  Democratic  party,  and  put 
themselves  into  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  in 
pursuance  of  their  bargain  are  now  carrying  out  that 
arrangement. 

"Matheny  states  that  Trumbull  broke  faith;  that  the 
bargain  was,  that  Lincoln  should  be  the  Senator  in 
Shields'  place,  and  Trumbull  was  to  wait  for  mine; 
and  the  story  goes,  that  Trumbull  cheated  Lincoln, 
having  control  of  four  or  five  abolitionized  Democrats 
who  were  holding  over  in  the  Senate ;  he  would  not 


342         LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

let  them  vote  for  Lincoln,  and  which  obliged  the  rest 
of  the  Abolitionists  to  support  him  in  order  to  secure 
an  abolition  Senator.  There  are  a  number  of  author 
ities  for  the  truth  of  this  besides  Matheny,  and  I  sup 
pose  that  even  Mr.  Lincoln  will  not  deny  it. 

"Mr.  Lincoln  demands  that  he  shall  have  the  place 
intended  for  Mr.  Trumbull,  as  Trumbull  cheated  him, 
and  got  his,  and  Trumbull  is  stumping  the  State 
traducing  me  for  the  purpose  of  securing  the  position 
for  Lincoln,  in  order  to  quiet  him.  It  was  in  conse 
quence  of  this  arrangement  that  the  Republican  Con 
vention  was  impaneled  to  instruct  for  Lincoln  and 
nobody  else,  and  it  was  on  this  account  that  they 
passed  resolutions  that  he  was  their  first,  their  last, 
and  their  only  choice.  Archy  Williams  was  nowhere, 
Browning  was  nobody,  Wentworth  was  not  to  be  con 
sidered  ;  they  had  no  man  in  the  Republican  party  for 
the  place  except  Lincoln,  for  the  reason  that  he 
demanded  that  they  should  carry  out  the  arrange 
ments.  Having  formed  this  new  party  for  the  benefit 
of  deserters  from  Whiggery,  and  deserters  from 
•  Democracy,  and  having  laid  down  the  abolition  plat 
form  which  I  have  read,  Lincoln  now  takes  his  stand 
and  proclaims  his  abolition  doctrine. 

"Let  me  read  a  part  of  them.  In  his  speech  at 
Springfield  to  the  Convention,  which  nominated  him 
for  the  Senate,  he  said:  [Reads  extracts.]  [Applause 
and  "good."]  I  am  delighted  to  hear  you  Black 
Republicans  say  "good."  I  have  no  doubt  that  doc 
trine  expresses  your  sentiments,  and  I  will  prove  to 
you  now,  if  you  will  listen  to  me,  that  it  is  revolution 
ary  and  destructive  of  the  existence  of  this  Govern 
ment. 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          343 

"Mr.  Lincoln,  in  the  extract  from  which  I  have  read, 
says  that  the  Government  cannot  endure  permanently 
by  the  same  principles  and  in  the  same  relative  condi 
tion  in  which  our  fathers  made  it.  Why  can  it  not 
exist  divided  into  free  and  slave  States?  Washington, 
Jefferson,  Franklin,  Madison,  Hamilton,  Jay,  and  the 
great  men  of  that  day,  made  this  Government  divided 
into  free  States  and  slave  States,  and  left  each  State 
perfectly  free  to  do  as  it  pleased  on  the  -subject  of 
slavery.  Why  can  it  not  exist  on  the  same  principles 
on  which  our  fathers  made  it?  They  knew  when  they 
framed  the  Constitution  that  in  a  country  as  wide  and 
broad  as  this,  with  such  a  variety  of  climate,  produc 
tions  and  interest,  the  people  necessarily  required 
different  laws  and  institutions  in  different  localities. 

"They  knew  that  the  laws  and  regulations  which 
would  suit  the  granite  hills  of  New  Hampshire  would 
be  unsuited  to  the  rice  plantations  of  South  Carolina, 
and  they,  therefore,  provided  that  each  State  should 
retain  its  own  Legislature  and  its  own  sovereignty, 
with  the  full  and  complete  power  to  do  as  it  pleased 
within  its  own  limits,  in  all  that  was  local  and  not 
national. 

"One  of  the  reserved  rights  of  the  States  was  the 
right  to  regulate  the  relations  between  master  and 
servant  on  the  slavery  question. 

"At  the  time  the  Constitution  was  framed,  there 
were  thirteen  States  in  the  Union,  twelve  of  which 
were  slave-holding  States,  and  one  a  free  State.  Sup 
pose  this  doctrine  of  uniformity  preached  by  Mr.  Lin 
coln,  that  the  States  should  all  be  free  or  all  slave,  had 
prevailed,  and  what  would  have  been  the  result?  Of 
course,  the  twelve  slave -holding  States  would  have 


344          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

overruled  the  one  free  State,  and  slavery  would  have 
been  fastened  by  a  Constitutional  provision  on  every 
inch  of  the  American  Republic,  instead  of  being  left  as 
our  fathers  wisely  left  it,  to  each  State  to  decide  for 
itself. 

"Here  I  assent  that  uniformity  in  the  local  laws  and 
institutions  of  the  different  States  is  neither  possible 
nor  desirable. 

"If  uniformity  had  been  adopted  when  the  Govern 
ment  was  established,  it  must  inevitably  have  been  the 
uniformity  of  slavery  everywhere,  or  else  the  uni 
formity  of  negro  citizenship  and  negro  equality  every 
where.  We  are  told  by  Lincoln,  that  he  is  utterly 
opposed  to  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  and  will  not 
submit  to  it,  for  the  reason  that  he  says  it  deprives  the 
negro  of  the  rights  and  privileges  of  citizenship. 

"That  is  the  first  and  main  reason  which  he  assigns 
for  the  warfare  on  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  and  its  decision. 

"I  ask  you,  are  you  in  favor  of  conferring  upon  the 
negro  the  rights  and  privileges  of  citizenship?  Do  you 
desire  to  strike  out  of  our  State  Constitution  that  clause 
which  keeps  slaves  and  free  negroes  out  of  the  State, 
and  allow  the  free  negroes  to  flow  in,  and  cover  your 
prairies  with  black  settlements? 

"Do  you  desire  to  turn  this  beautiful  State  into  a 
free  negro  colony,  in  order  that  when  Missouri 
abolishes  slavery  she  can  send  one  hundred  thousand 
emancipated  slaves  into  Illinois,  to  become  citizens  and 
voters  on  an  equality  with  ourselves? 

"If  you  desire  negro  citizenship,  if  you  desire  them 
to  vote  on  an  equality  with  yourselves,  and  to  make 
them  eligible  to  office,  to  serve  on  juries  and  to  adjudge 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          345 

our  rights,  then  support  Mr.  Lincoln  and  the  Black 
Republican  party,  who  are  in  favor  of  the  citizenship 
of  the  negro. 

"For  one,  I  am  opposed  to  negro  citizenship  in  any 
and  every  form.  I  believe  this  Government  was  made 
on  the  white  basis. 

"I  believe  it  was  made  by  white  men,  for  the  benefit 
of  white  men  and  their  posterity  forever,  and  I  am  in 
favor  of  conferring  citizenship  to  white  men,  men  of 
European  birth  and  descent,  instead  of  conferring  it 
upon  negroes,  Indians,  and  other  inferior  races. 

"Mr.  Lincoln,  following  the  example  and  lead  of  all 
the  little  abolition  orators,  who  go  around  and  lecture 
in  the  basements  of  schools  and  churches,  read  from 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  that  all  men  are 
created  equal,  and  then  asks,  how  can  you  deprive  a 
negro  of  that  equality  which  God  and  the  Declaration 
of  Independence  award  to  him?  He  and  they  maintain 
that  negro  equality  is  guaranteed  by  the  laws  of  God, 
and  that  it  is  asserted  in  the  Declaration  of  Independ 
ence. 

"If  they  think  so,  of  course,  they  have  a  right  to  say 
so,  and  so  vote.  I  do  not  question  Mr.  Lincoln's  con 
scientious  belief  that  the  negro  was  made  his  equal,  and 
hence  is  his  brother,  but  for  my  own  part,  I  do  not 
regard  the  negro  as  my  equal,  and  positively  deny  that 
he  is  my  brother  or  any  kin  to  me  whatever.  Lincoln 
has  evidently  learned  by  heart  Parson  Lovejoy's  cate 
chism.  He  can  repeat  as  well  as  Farnsworth,  and  he 
•is  worthy  of  a  medal  from  Father  Giddings  and  Fred 
Douglass  for  his  abolitionism.  He  holds  that  the  negro 
was1  born  his  equal  and  yours,  and  that  he  was  endowed 
with  equality  by  the  Almighty,  and  that  no  human  law 


346          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

can  deprive  him  of  these  rights  which  were  guaranteed 
to  him  by  the  Supreme  Ruler  of  the  Universe.  Now, 
I  do  not  believe  that  the  Almighty  ever  intended  the 
negro  to  be  the  equal  of  the  white  man.  If  he  did,  he 
has  been  a  long  time  demonstrating  the  fact.  For 
thousands  of  years  the  negro  has  been  a  race  upon  the 
earth,  and  during  all  that  time,  in  all  latitudes  and 
climates,  wherever  he  has  wandered  or  been  taken,  he 
has  been  inferior  to  the  race  which  he  has  there  met. 
He  belongs  to  an  inferior  race,  and  must  always 
occupy  an  inferior  position. 

"I  do  not  hold  that  because  the  negro  is  our  inferior 
that  therefore  he  ought  to  be  a  slave.  By  no  means 
can  such  a  conclusion  be  drawn  from  what  I  have  said. 
On  the  contrary,  I  hold  that  humanity  and  Christianity 
both  require  that  the  negro  shall  have  and  enjoy  every 
right,  every  privilege,  and  every  immunity  consistent 
with  the  safety  of  the  society  in  which  he  lives. 

"On  that  point,  I  presume,  there  can  be  no  diversity 
of  opinion. 

"You  and  I  are  bound  to  extend  to  our  inferior  and 
dependent  beings  every  right,  every  privilege,  every 
facility  and  immunity  consistent  with  the  public  good. 

"The  question  then  arises,  what  rights  and  privileges 
are  consistent  with  the  public  good? 

"This  is  a  question  which  each  State  and  each  Ter 
ritory  must  decide  for  itself — Illinois  has  decided  it  for 
herself.  We  have  provided  that  the  negro  shall  not  be 
a  slave,,  and  we  have  also  provided  that  he  shall  not  be 
a  citizen,  but  we  protect  him  in  his  civil  rights,  in  his 
life,  his  person,  and  his  property,  only  depriving  him  of 
all  political  rights  whatsoever,  and  refusing  to  put  him 
on  an  equality  with  the  white  man. 


LINCOLN'S  GREAT   SPEECHES.          347 

*That  policy  .of  Illinois  is  satisfactory  to  the  Demo 
cratic  party  and  to  me,  and  if  it  were  to  the  Repub 
licans,  there  would  be  no  question  upon  the  subject. 

"But  the  Republicans  say  he  ought  to  be  made  a 
citizen,  and  when  he  becomes  a  citizen,  he  becomes 
your  equal,  with  all  your  rights  and  privileges. 

"They  assert  the  Dred  Scott  decision  to  be  monstrous 
because  it  denies  that  the  negro  is  or  can  be  a  citizen 
under  the  Constitution. 

"Now,  I  hold  that  Illinois  has  a  right  to  abolish  and 
prohibit  slavery,  as  she  did,  and  I  hold  that  Kentucky 
has  the  same  right  to  continue  and  protect  slavery  that 
Illinois  had  to  abolish  it.  I  hold  that  New  York  had 
as  much  right  to  abolish  slavery  as  Virginia  has  to  con 
tinue  it,  and  that  each  and  every  State  of  this  Union  is 
a  sovereign  power,  with  the  right  to  do  as  it  pleases  on 
this  question  of  slavery,  and  upon  all  its  domestic  insti 
tutions. 

"Slavery  is  not  the  only  question  that  comes  up  in 
this  controversy.  There  is  a  far  more  important  one 
to  you,  and  that  is,  what  shall  be  done  with  the  free 
negro? 

"We  have  settled  the  slavery  question,  so  far  as  we 
are  concerned;  we  have  prohibited  it  in  Illinois  for 
ever,  and  in  doing  so,  I  think  we  have  done  wisely,  and 
there  is  no  man  in  the  State  who  would  be  more 
strenuous  in  his  opposition  to  the  introduction  of  slav 
ery  than  I  would ;  but  when  we  have  settled  it  for  our 
selves,  we  exhausted  all  our  power  over  that  subject. 
We  have  done  our  whole  duty,  and  can  do  no  more. 

"We  must  leave  each  and  every  other  State  to 
decide  for  itself  the  same  question.  In  relation  to  the 
policy  to  be  pursued  toward  the  free  negroes,  we  have 


348          LINCOLN'S    GREAT    SPEECHES. 

said  that  they  shall  not  vote;  whilst  Maine,  on  the 
other  hand,  has  said  that  they  shall  vote.  Maine  is  a 
sovereign  State,  and  has  the  power  to  regulate  the 
qualifications  of  voters  within  her  limits.  I  would 
never  consent  to  confer  the  right  of  voting  and  of 
citizenship  upon  a  negro,  but  still  I  am  not  going  to 
quarrel  with  Maine  for  differing  with  me  in  opinion. 
Let  Maine  take  care  of  her  own  negroes  and  fix  the 
qualifications  of  her  own  voters  to  suit  herself,  without 
interfering  with  Illinois,  and  Illinois  will  not  interfere 
with  Maine.  So  with  the  State  of  New  York.  She 
allows  the  negro  to  vote  provided  he  owns  two  hundred 
and  fifty  dollars'  worth  of  property,  but  not  otherwise. 

"While  I  should  not  make  any  distinction,  whatever, 
between  a  negro  who  held  property  and  o:?.e  who  did 
not,  yet,  if  the  sovereign  State  of  New  York  chooses 
to  make  that  distinction,  it  is  her  business  and  not 
mine,  and  I  will  not  quarrel  with  her  for  it.  She  can 
do  as  she  pleases  on  this  question  if  she  minds  her  own 
business,  and  we  will  do  the  same  thing. 

"Now,  my  friends,  if  we  will  only  act  conscientiously 
and  rigidly  upon  this  great  question  of  popular  sover 
eignty,  which  guarantees  to  each  State  and  Territory 
the  right  to  do  as  it  pleases  on  all  things  local,  and 
domestic,  instead  of  Congress  interfering,  we  will 
continue  at  peace  one  with  another. 

"Why  should  Illinois  be  at  war  with  Missouri,  or 
Kentucky  with  Ohio,  or  Virginia  with  New  York, 
merely  because  their  institutions  differ.  They  knew 
that  the  North  and  the  South,  having  different  cli 
mates,  productions  and  interests,  required  different 
institutions. 

"This  doctrine  of  Mr.  Lincoln's,  of  uniformity  among 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          349 

the  institutions  of  the  different  States,  is  a  new  doc 
trine  never  dreamed  of  by  Washington,  Madison,  or 
the  framers  of  this  Government.  Mr.  Lincoln  and  the 
Republican  party  set  themselves  up  as  wiser  than  these 
men  who  made  the  Government,  which  has  flourished 
for  seventy  years  under  the  principle  of  popular 
sovereignty,  recognizing  the  right  of  each  State  to  do 
ns  it  pleased.  Under  that  principle  we  have  grown 
from  a  nation  of  about  thirty  millions  of  people.  We 
have  crossed  the  Alleghany  Mountains,  and  filled  up 
the  whole  Northwest,  turning  the  prairie  into  a  gar 
den,  and  building  up  churches  and  schools,  thus 
spreading  civilization  and  Christianity  where  before 
there  was  nothing  but  savage  barbarism.  Under  that 
principle  we  have  become,  from  a  feeble  nation,  the 
most  powerful  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  and  if  we  only 
adhere  to  that  principle,  we  can  go  forward  increasing 
in  territory,  in  power,  in  strength,  and  in  glory  until 
the  Republic  of  America  shall  be  the  North  Star  that 
shall  guide  the  friends  of  freedom  throughout  the 
civilized  world. 

4 'And  why  can  we  not  adhere  to  the  great  principle 
of  self-government,  upon  which  our  institutions  were 
originally  based?  I  believe  that  the  new  doctrine 
preached  by  Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  party  will  dissolve 
the  Union  if  it  succeeds. 

"They  are  trying  to  array  all  the  Northern  States  in 
one  body  against  the  South,  to  excite  a  sectional  war 
between  the  free  States  and  the  slave  States,  in  order 
that  one  or  the  other  may  be  driven  to  the  wall. 

"I  arn  told  that  my  time  is  out.  Mr.  Lincoln  will 
now  address  you  for  an  hour  and  a  half,  and  I  will  then 
occupy  a  half  hour  in  replying  to  him." 


350          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

MR.  LINCOLN'S  REPLY. 

"My  Fellow-Citizens:  When  a  man  hears  himself 
somewhat  misrepresented,  it  provokes  him — at  least  I 
find  it  so  with  myself,  but  when  misrepresentation 
becomes  very  gross  and  palpable,  it  is  more  apt  to 
amuse  me. 

"The  first  thing  I  see  fit  to  notice  is  the  fact  that 
Judge  Douglas  alleges,  after  running  through  the  his 
tory  of  the  old  Democratic  and  the  old  Whig  parties, 
that  Judge  Trumbull  and  myself  made  arrangement  in 
1854,  by  which  I  was  to  have  the  place  of  General 
Shields  in  the  United  States  Senate,  and  Judge  Trum 
bull  was  to  have  the  place  of  Judge  Douglas. 

"  Now,  all  that  I  have  to  say  upon  that  subject  is, 
that  I  think  no  man,  not  even  Judge  Douglas,  can 
prove  this,  because  it  is  not  true.  I  have  no  doubt  he 
is  conscientious  in  saying  it.  As  to  those  resolutions 
that  he  took  such  a  length  of  time  to  read,  as  being  the 
platform  of  the  Republican  party  in  1854,  I  say,  I 
never  had  anything  to  do  with  them. 

"I  believe  this  is  true  about  those  resolutions: 
There  was  a  call  for  a  convention  to  form  a  Repub 
lican  party  at  Springfield,  and  I  think  that  my  friend, 
Mr.  Lovejoy,  who  is  here  upon  this  stand,  had  a  hand 
in  it.  I  think  this  is  true,  and  I  think,  if  he  will 
remember  accurately,  he  will  be  able  to  recollect  that 
he  tried  to  get  me  into  it,  and  I  would  not  go  in. 

"I  believe  that  it  is  also  true  that  I  went  away  from 
Springfield  when  the  Convention  was  in  session  to 
attend  court  in  Tazewell  County.  It  is  true  that  they 
did  place  my  name,  though  without  authority,  upon 
the  Committee,  and  afterward  wrote  me  to  attend  the 
^eeting  of  the  Committee,  but  I  refused  to  do  so,  and 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          351 

I  never  had  anything  to  do  with  that  organization. 
This  is  the  plain  truth  about  all  that  matter  of  the 
resolution. 

"Now,  about  that  story  that  Judge  Douglas  tells  of 
Trumbull  bargaining  to  sell  out  the  old  Democratic 
party,  and  Lincoln  agreeing  to  sell  out  the  old  Whig 
party,  I  have  the  means  of  knowing  about  that  that 
Judge  Douglas  cannot  have,  and  I  know  there  is  no 
substance  to  it  whatever.  Yet  I  have  no  doubt  he  is 
'conscientious'  about  it.  I  know  that  after  Mr. 
Lovejoy  got  into  the  Legislature  that  winter,  he  com 
plained  of  me  that  I  had  told  all  the  old  Whigs  of  his 
district  that  the  old  Whig  party  was  good  enough  for 
them,  and  some  of  them  voted  against  him  because  I 
told  them  so.  Now,  I  have  no  means  of  totally  dis 
proving  such  charges  as  this  which  the  Judge  makes. 

"A  man  cannot  prove  a  negative,  but  he  has  a  right 
to  claim  that  when  a  man  makes  an  affirmative  charge, 
he  must  offer  some  proof  to  show  the  truth  of  what  he 
says.  I  certainly  cannot  introduce  testimony  to  show 
the  negative  about  things,  but  I  have  a  right  to  claim 
that  if  a  man  says  he  knows  a  thing,  then  he  must 
show  how  he  knows  it.  I  always  have  a  right  to  claim 
this,  and  it  is  not  satisfactory  to  me  that  he  may  be 
conscientious  on  the  subject. 

"Now,  gentlemen,  I  hate  to  waste  my  time  on  such 
things,  but  in  regard  to  that  general  abolition  tilt  that 
Judge  Douglas  makes,  when  he  says  that  I  was 
engaged  at  that  time  in  selling  out  and  abolitionizing 
the  old  Whig  party,  I  hope  you  will  permit  me  to  read 
a  part  of  a  printed  speech  that  I  made  then  at  Peoria, 
which  will  show  altogether  a  different  view  of  the 
position  I  took  in  that  contest  of  1854: 


352          LINCOLN'S   GREAT    SPEECHES. 

"  'This  is  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise. 
The  foregoing  history  may  not  be  precisely  accurate  in 
every  particular,  but  I  presume  it  is  sufficiently  so  for 
all  the  uses  I  shall  attempt  to  make  of  it,  and  in  it  we 
have  before  us  the  chief  material  enabling  us  to  cor 
rectly  judge  whether  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Com 
promise  is  right  or  wrong.  I  think,  and  shall  try  to 
show,  that  it  is  wrong;  wrong  in  its  direct  effects, 
letting  slavery  into  Kansas  and  Nebraska,  and  wrong 
in  its  prospective  principle,  allowing  it  to  spread  to 
every  other  part  of  the  wide  world,  where  men  can  be 
found  inclined  to  take  it.  This  declared  indifference, 
but,  as  I  must  think,  covert  zeal,  for  the  spread  of 
slavery,  I  cannot  but  hate.  I  hate  it  because  of  the 
monstrous  injustice  of  slavery  itself — I  hate  it  because 
it  deprives  our  Republican  example  of  its  just  influence 
in  the  world — enables  the  enemies  of  free  institutions, 
with  plausibility,  to  taunt  us  as  hypocrites — causes  the 
real  friends  of  freedom  to  doubt  our  sincerity,  and 
especially  because  it  forces  so  many  really  good  men 
amongst  ourselves  into  open  war  with  the  very 
fundamental  principles  of  civil  liberty — criticising 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  insisting 
that  there  is  no  right  principle  of  action  but  self- 
interest. 

"  'Before  proceeding,  let  me  say,  I  think  I  have  no 
prejudice  against  the  Southern  people.  They  are  just 
what  we  would  be  in  their  situation.  If  slavery  did 
not  exist  among  them,  they  would  not  introduce  it;  if 
it  did  now  exist  among  us,  we  should  not  instantly  give 
it  up.  This  I  believe  of  the  masses,  north  and  south. 
Doubtless  there  are  individuals  on  both  sides  who 
would  not  hold  the  slaves  under  any  circumstances,  and 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT    SPEECHES.          353 

others  who  would  gladly  introduce  slavery  anew,  if  it 
were  out  of  existence. 

**  'We  know  that  some  Southern  men  do  free  their 
slaves,  go  north  and  become  tip-top  Abolitionists, 
while  some  northern  ones  go  south  and  become  most 
cruel  slave  masters. 

"  'When  Southern  people  tell  us  they  are  no  more 
responsible  for  the  origin  of  slavery  than  we,  I 
acknowledge  the  fact.  When  it  is  said  that  the  insti 
tution  exists  and  that  it  is  very  difficult  to  get  rid  of  it 
in  any  satisfactory  way,  I  can  understand  and  appre 
ciate  the  saying.  I  surely  will  not  blame  them  for  not 
doing  what  I  should  not  know  how  to  do  myself.  If 
all  earthly  powers  were  given  me,  I  should  not  know 
what  to  do  as  to  the  existing  institution. 

"  'My  first  impulse  would  be  to  free  all  the  slaves  and 
send  them  to  Liberia — to  their  own  native  land.  But 
a  moment's  reflection  would  convince  me  that  what 
ever  of  high  hope  (as  I  think  there  is)  there  may  be  in 
this,  in  the  long  run,  its  sudden  execution  is  impos 
sible. 

"  'If  they  were  all  landed  there  in  a  day,  they  would 
all  perish  there  in  the  next  ten  days — and  there  are  not 
surplus  shipping  and  surplus  money  enough  in  the 
world  to  carry  them  there  in  many  times  ten  days. 
What  then?  Free  them  all,  and  keep  them  among  us 
as  underlings?  Is  it  quite  certain  that  this  betters 
their  condition?  I  think  I  would  not  hold  them  in 
slavery  at  any  rate,  yet  the  point  is  not  clear  enough  to 
me  to  denounce  people  upon.  What  next?  Free  them, 
and  make  them  politically  and  socially  our  equals?  My 
own  feelings  will  not  admit  of  this;  and  if  mine  would, 
we  well  know  that  the  great  mass  of  white  people  will 


354          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

not.  Whether  this  feeling  accords  with  justice  and 
sound  judgment  is  not  the  sole  question,  if,  indeed,  it 
is  any  part  of  it.  A  universal  feeling,  whether  well  or 
ill  founded,  cannot  be  safely  disregarded.  We  can 
not,  then,  make  them  equals.  It  does  seem  to  me  that 
systems  of  gradual  emancipation  might  be  adopted; 
but  for  their  tardiness,  I  will  not  undertake  to  judge 
our  brethren  of  the  South;  they  remind  us  of  their 
Constitutional  rights;  I  acknowledge  them,  not  grudg 
ingly,  but  fully  and  fairly,  and  I  would  give  them  any 
legislation  for  the  reclaiming  of  their  fugitives,  which 
should  not,  in  its  stringency,  be  more  likely  to  carry 
a  free  man  into  slavery  than  our  ordinary  criminal  laws 
are  to  hang  an  innocent  one. 

"But  all  this,  to  my  judgment,  furnishes  no  more 
excuse  for  permitting  slavery  to  go  into  our  own  free 
territory,  than  it  would  for  revising  the  African  slave- 
trade  by  law.  The  law  which  forbids  the  bringing  of 
slaves  from  Africa,  and  that  which  has  so  long  forbid 
the  taking  of  them  to  Nebraska,  can  hardly  be  dis 
tinguished  on  any  moral  principle ;  and  the  repeal  of 
the  former  could  find  quite  as  plausible  excuses  as  that 
of  the  latter. ' 

"I  have  reason  to  know  that  Judge  Douglas  knows 
that  I  said  this ;  I  think  he  has  the  answer  here  to  one 
of  his  questions  he  puts  to  me ;  I  do  not  mean  to  allow 
him  to  catechise  me  unless  he  pays  me  back  in  kind. 
I  will  not  answer  questions  one  after  another,  unless 
he  reciprocates,  but  as  he  has  made  this  inquiry,  and  I 
have  answered  it  before,  he  has  got  it  without  my  get 
ting  anything  in  return.  He  has  got  my  answer  on 
the  Fugitive  Slave  Law. 

"Now,    gentlemen,    I   don't   want   to   read   at    any 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          355 

greater  length,  but  this  is  the  true  complexion  of  all  I 
have  ever  said  in  regard  to  the  institution  of  slavery 
and  the  black  race. 

"This  is  the  whole  of  it,  and  anything  that  argues 
me  into  his  idea  of  perfect  social  and  political  equality 
with  the  negro  is  but  a  specious  and  fantastic  arrange 
ment  of  words  by  which  men  can  prove  a  horse'chest- 
nut  to  be  a  chestnut  horse.  I  will  say  here,  while 
upon  this  subject,  that  I  have  no  purpose,  directly  or 
indirectly,  to  interfere  with  the  institution  of  slavery 
in  the  States  where  it  exists.  I  believe  I  have  no  law 
ful  right  to  do  so;  I  have  no  purpose  to  introduce 
political  and  social  equaluy  between  the  white  and 
black  races.  There  is1  a  physical  difference  between 
the  two,  which,  in  my  judgment,  will  probably  forever 
forbid  their  living  together  upon  the  footing  of  perfect 
equality,  and,  inasmuch  as  it  becomes  a  necessity  that 
there  must  be  a  difference,  I,  as  well  as  Judge  Douglas, 
am  in  favor  of  the  race  to  which  I  belong  having  the 
superior  position. 

"I  have  never  said  anything  to  the  contrary,  but  I 
hold  that,  notwithstanding  all  this,  there  is  no  reason 
in  the  world  why  the  negro  is  not  entitled  to  all  the 
natural  rights  enumerated  in  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence,  the  right  to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of 
happiness.  I  hold  that  he  is  as  much  entitled  to  these 
as  the  white  man.  I  agree  with  Judge  Douglas,  he  is 
not  my  equal  in  any  respect,  certainly  not  in  color, 
perhaps  not  in  moral  or  intellectual  endowments,  but 
in  the  right  to  eat  the  bread,  without  the  leave  of  any 
body  else,  which  his  own  hand  earns,  he  is  my  equal 
and  the  equal  of  Judge  Douglas,  and  the  equal  of  any 
living  man. 


356         LINCOLN'S  GREAT   SPEECHES. 

44  Now,  I  pass  on  to  consider  one  or  two  more  of 
these  little  follies.  The  Judge  is  woefully  at  fault 
about  his  early  friend  Lincoln  being  a  grocery-keeper. 
I  don't  know  as  it  would  be  a  great  sin,  if  I  had  been, 
but  he  is  mistaken.  Lincoln  never  kept  a  grocery  any 
where  in  the  world ;  it  is  true  that  Lincoln  did  work 
the  latter  part  of  one  winter  in  a  little  still-house  up  at 
the  head  of  the  hollow.  And  so,  I  think,  my  friend, 
the  Judge,  is  equally  at  fault  when  he  charges  me  at 
the  time  when  I  was  in  Congress  of  having  opposed 
our  soldiers  who  were  fighting  in  the  Mexican  War. 
The  Judge  did  not  make  his  charge  very  distinctly? 
but  I  can  tell  you  how  you  can  prove  it,  by  referring 
to  the  record.  You  remember  I*was  an  old  Whig,  and 
whenever  the  Democratic  party  tried  to  get  me  to  vote 
that  the  war  had  been  righteously  made  by  the  Presi 
dent,  I  would  not  do  it,  but  whenever  they  asked  for 
money  or  land  warrants,  or  anything  to  pay  the  sol 
diers  there,  during  all  that  time,  I  gave  the  same  vote 
that  Judge  Douglas  did.  You  can  think  as  you  please 
as  to  whether  that  was  consistent.  Such  is  the  truth, 
and  the  Judge  has  the  right  to  make  all  he  can  out  of 
it.  But  when  he,  by  a  general  statement,  conveys  the 
idea  that  I  withheld  supplies  from  the  soldiers,  he  is, 
to  say  the  least,  grossly  and  altogether  mistaken,  as  a 
consultation  of  the  records  will  prove  to  him. 

**As  I  have  not  used  up  so  much  of  my  time  as  I  had 
supposed,  I  will  dwell  a  little  longer  upon  one  or  two 
of  these  minor  topics  upon  which  the  Judge  has 
spoken.  He  has  read  from  my  speech  in  Springfield, 
in  which  I  said  that  'a  house  divided  against  itself 
cannot  stand.'  Does  the  Judge  say  it  can  stand? 
I  don't  know  whether  he  does  or  not.  The  Judge  does 


LINCOLN'S  GREAT   SPEECHES.          357 

not  seem  to  be  attending  to  me  just  now,  but  I  would 
like  to  know  if  it  is  his  opinion  that  a  house  divided 
against  itself  can  stand.  If  he  does,  then  there  is  a 
question  of  veracity,  not  between  him  and  me,  but 
between  the  Judge  and  an  authority  of  a  somewhat 
higher  character. 

44  Now,  my  friends,  I  ask  your  attention  to  this 
matter  for  the  purpose  of  saying  something  seriously. 
I  know  that  the  Judge  may  readily  enough  agree  with 
me  that  the  maxim  which  was  put  forth  by  the  Savior 
is  true,  but  he  may  allege  that  I  misapply, it;  and  the 
Judge  has  a  right  to  urge  that,  in  my  application,  I  do 
misapply  it,  and  then  I  have  a  right  to  show  that  I  do 
not  misapply  it.  When  he  undertakes  to  say  that 
because  I  think  this  nation,  so  far  as  the  question  is 
concerned,  will  all  become  one  tiling  or  all  the  other, 
I  am  in  favor  of  bringing  about  a  dead  uniformity  in 
the  various  States  in  all  their  institutions,  he  argues 
erroneously.  The  great  variety  of  the  local  institu 
tions  in  the  States,  springing  from  differences  in  the 
soil,  differences  in  the  face  of  the  country,  and  in  thi 
climate,  are  bonds  of  union.  They  do  not  make  a 
house  divided  against  itself,  but  they  make  a  house 
united. 

"If  they  produce  in  one  section  of  the  country  what 
is  called  for  by  the  wants  of  another  section,  and  this 
other  section  can  supply  the  wants  of  the  first,  they  are 
not  matters  of  discord,  but  bonds  of  union,  true  bonds 
of  union.  But  can  this  question  of  slavery  be  consid 
ered  as  among  these  varieties  in  the  institutions  of  the 
country?  I  leave  it  to  you  to  say  whether  in  the  his 
tory  of.  our  Government  this  institution  of  slavery  has 
not  always  failed  to  be  a  bond  of  union,  and,  on  the 


358         LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

contrary,  been  an  apple  of  discord,  and  an  element  of 
division  in  the  house. 

'I  ask  you  to  consider  whether,  so  long  as  the  moral 
constitution  of  men's  minds  shall  continue  to  be  the 
same,  after  this  generation  and  assemblage  shall  sink 
into  the  grave,  and  another  race  shall  arise,  with  the 
same  moral  and  intellectual  development  we  have, 
whether,  if  that  institution  is  standing  in  the  irritating 
position  in  which  it  now  is,  it  will  not  continue  an 
element  of  division?  If  so,  then  I  have  a  right  to  say 
that,  in  regard  to  this  question,  the  Union  is  a  house 
divided  against  itself;  and  when  the  Judge  reminds  me 
that  I  have  often  said  to  him  that  the  institution  of 
slavery  has  existed  for  eighty  years  in  some  States,  and 
yet  it  does  not  exist  in  some  others,  I  agree  to  the  fact, 
and  I  account  for  it  by  looking  at  the  position  in  which 
our  fathers  originally  placed  it, — restricting  it  from 
the  new  Territories  where  it  had  not  gone,  and  legis 
lating  to  cut  off  its  source  by  the  abrogation  of  the 
slave-leader,  thus  putting  the  seal  of  legislation  against 
its  spread. 

' '  The  public  mind  did  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  was  in 
the  course  of  ultimate  extinction.  But  lately,  I  think 
— and  in  this  I  charge  nothing  on  the  Judge's  motives 
—lately,  I  think  that  he,  and  those  acting  with  him, 
have  placed  that  institution  on  a  new  basis,  which 
looks  to  the  perpetuity  and  nationalization  of  slavery. 
And  while  it  is  placed  upon  this  new  basis,  I  say,  and 
have  said,  that  I  believe  we  shall  not  have  peace  upon 
the  question  until  the  opponents  of  slavery  arrest  the 
further  spread  of  it,  and  place  it  where  the  public 
mind  shall  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the  course  of 
ultimate  extinction;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  that  its 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          359 

advocates  will  push  it  forward  until  it  shall  become 
alike  lawful  in  all  the  States,  old  as  well  as  new,  North 
as  well  as  South. 

"Now,  I  believe  if  we  could  arrest  the  spread,  and 
place  it  where  Washington  and  Jefferson  and  Madison 
placed  it,  it  would  be  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinc 
tion.  The  crisis  would  be  past,  and  the  institution 
might  be  left  alone  for  a  hundred  years,  if  it  should 
live  so  long  in  the  States  where  it  exists,  yet  it  would 
be  going  out  of  existence  in  the  way  best  for  both  the 
black  and  the  white  races. 

"[A  voice — 'Then  do  you  repudiate  Popular  Sover 
eignty?']  What  is  Popular  Sovereignty?  Is  it  the  right 
of  the  people  to  have  slavery  or  not  have  it,  as  they  see 
fit,  in  the  Territories?  I  will  state — and  I  have  an 
able  man  to  match  me — my  understanding  is  that  Pop 
ular  Sovereignty,  as  now  applied  to  the  question  of 
slavery,  does  allow  the  people  of  a  Territory  to 
have  slavery  if  they  want  to,  but  allows  them  not  to 
have  it  if  they  do  not  want  it.  I  do  not  mean  that  if 
this  vast  concourse  of  people  were  in  a  Territory  of  the 
United  States,  any  one  of  them  would  be  obliged  to 
have  a  slave  if  he  did  not  want  one;  but  I  do  say  that, 
as  I  understand  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  if  any  one 
man  wants  slaves,  all  the  rest  have  no  way  of  keeping 
that  one  man  from  holding  them. 

"When  I  made  my  speech  at  Springfield,  of  which 
the  Judge  complains  and  from  which  he  quotes,  I 
really  was  not  thinking  of  the  things  which  he  ascribes 
to  me  at  all.  I  had  no  thought  in  the  world  that  I  was 
doing  anything  to  bring  about  a  war  between  the  free 
and  slave  States. 

1 '  I  had  no  thought  in  the  world  that  I  was  doing  any- 


360          LINCOLN'S   GR^AT   SPEECHES. 

thing  to  bring  about  a  political  and  social  equality  of 
the  black  and  white  races. 

"It  never  occurred  to  me  that  I  was  doing  anything 
or  favoring  anything  to  reduce  to  a  dead  uniformity 
all  the  local  institutions  of  the  various  States. 

"But  I  must  say,  in  all  fairness  to  him,  if  he  thinks 
I  am  doing  something  that  leads  to  these  bad  results, 
it  is  none  the  better  that  I  did  not  mean  it. 

"It  is  just  as  fatal  to  the  country,  if  I  had  any  influ 
ence  in  producing  it,  whether  I  intended  to  or  not. 

"But  can  it  be  true,  that  placing  this  institution 
upon  the  original  basis — the  basis  upon  which  our 
fathers  placed  it — can  have  any  tendency  to  set  the 
Northern  and  Southern  States  at  war  with  one  another, 
or  that  it  can  have  any  tendency  to  make  the  people  of 
Vermont  raise  sugarcane,  because  they  raise  it  in 
Louisiana,  or  that  it  can  compel  the  people  of  Illinois 
to  cut  pine  logs  on  the  Grand  Prairie,  where  they  will 
not  grow,  because  they  cut  pine  logs  in  Maine,  where 
they  do  grow?  The  Judge  says  this  is  a  new  principle 
started  in  regard  to  this  question.  Does  the  Judge 
claim  that  he  is  working  on  the  plan  of  the  founder  of 
Government? 

"I  think  he  says  in  some  of  his  speeches — indeed,  I 
have  one  here  now — that  he  saw  evidence  of  a  policy 
to  allow  slavery  to  be  south  of  a  certain  line,  while 
north  of  it  it  should  be  excluded,  and  he  saw  an  indis 
position  on  the  part  of  the  country  to  stand  upon  that 
policy,  and  therefore  he  set  about  studying  the  subject 
upon  original  principles,  and  upon  original  principles 
he  got  up  the  Nebraska  bill !  I  am  fighting  it  upon 
these  'original  principles' — fighting  it  in  the  Jeffer- 
sonian,  Washingtonian  and  Madisonian  fashion. 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          361 

"Now,  my  friends,  I  wish  you  to  attend  for  a  little 
while  to  one  or  two  other  things  in  that  Springfield 
speech.  My  main  object  was  to  show,  so  far  as  my 
humble  ability  was  capable  of  showing  to  the  people  of 
this  country,  what  I  believe  was  the  truth,  that  there 
was  a  tendency,  if  not  a  conspiracy  among  those  who 
have  engineered  this  slavery  question  for  the  last  four 
or  five  years,  to  make  slavery  perpetual  and  universal 
in  this  nation. 

"Having  made  that  speech  principally  for  that 
object,  after  arranging  the  evidences  that  I  thought 
tended  to  prove  my  proposition,  I  concluded  with  this 
bit  of  comment:  [Reads  from  Springfield  speech]. 

"When  my  friend  Judge  Douglas  came  to  Chicago, 
on  the  pth  of  July,  this  speech  having  been  delivered 
on  the  1 6th  of  June,  he  made  a  harangue  there,  in 
which  he  took  hold  of  the  speech  of  mine,  showing  that 
he  had  carefully  read  it;  and  while  he  paid  no  atten 
tion  to  this  matter  at  all,  but  complimented  me  as 
being  a  'kind,  amiable,  and  intelligent  gentleman,' 
notwithstanding  I  had  said  this,  he  goes  on  and  elim 
inates,  or  draws  out,  from  my  speech  this  tendency  of 
mine  to  set  the  States  at  war  with  one  another,  to 
make  all  the  institutions  uniform,  and  set  the  niggers 
and  white  people  to  marrying  together. 

"Then,  as  the  Judge  had  complimented  me  with 
these  pleasant  titles  (I  must  confess  to  my  weakness),  I 
was  a  little  'taken,'  for  it  came  from  a  great  man. 

"I  was  not  very  much  accustomed  to  flattery,  and  it 
came  the  sweeter  to  me. 

"I  was  rather  like  the  Hoosier  with  the  gingerbread, 
when  he  said  he  loved  it  better  than  any  other  man  and 
got  less  of  it.  As  the  Judge  had  so  flattered  me,  I 


362          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

could  not  make  up  my  mind  that  he  meant  to  deal 
unfairly  with  me,  so  I  went  to  work  to  show  him  that 
he  misunderstood  the  whole  scope  of  my  speech,  and 
that  I  really  never  intended  to  set  the  people  at  war 
with  one  another. 

"As  an  illustration,  the  next  time  I  met  him,  which 
was  at  Springfield,  I  used  this  expression,  that  I 
claimed  no  right  under  the  Constitution,  nor  had  I 
any  inclination,  to  enter  into  the  slave  States  and  inter 
fere  with  the  institution  of  slavery. 

"He  says  upon  that:  'Lincoln  will  not  enter  into  the 
slave  States,  but  will  go  to  the  banks  of  the  Ohio,  on 
this  side ;  and  shoot  over. '  He  runs  on,  step  by  step, 
in  the  horsechestnut  style  of  argument,  until  in  the 
Springfield  speech  he  says,  'Unless  he  shall  be  success 
ful  in  firing  his  batteries,  until  he  shall  have  extin 
guished  slavery  in  all  the  States,  the  Union  shall  be 
dissolved.'  Now,  I  don't  think  that  was  exactly  the 
way  to  treat  a  'kind,  amiable,  intelligent  gentleman.' 
I  know  if  I  had  asked  the  Judge  to  show  when  and 
where  it  was  I  had  said  that,  if  I  didn't  succeed  in  fir 
ing  into  the  slave  States  until  slavery  should  be  extin 
guished,  the  Union  should  be  dissolved,  he  could  not 
have  shown  it. 

"I  understand  what  he  would  do.  He  would  say, 
'I  don't  mean  to  quote  from  you,  but  this  was  the 
result  of  what  you  say. ' 

"But  I  have  the  right  to  ask,  and  I  ask  now,  Did 
you  not  put  it  in  such  a  form  that  an  ordinary  reader 
or  listener  would  take  it  as  an  expression  from  me? 

"In  a  speech  at  Springfield,  on  the  night  of  the  lyth, 
I  thought  I  might  as  well  attend  to  my  own  business  a 
little,  and  I  recalled  his  attention  to  the  fact  that  he 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          363 

had  acknowledged  in  my  hearing  twice  that  he  had 
carefully  read  the  speech,  and  still  had  put  in  no  plea 
or  answer.  I  took  a  default  on  him.  I  insisted  that  I 
had  a  right  then  to  renew  that  charge  of  conspiracy. 
Ten  days  afterward  I  met  the  Judge  at  Clinton — that 
is  to  say,  I  was  on  the  ground,  but  not  in  the  discus 
sion — I  heard  him  make  a  speech. 

"Then  he  comes  in  with  his  plea  to  this  charge,  for 
the  first  time,  and  his  plea  as  put  in,  as  well  as  I  can 
recollect  it,  amounted  to  this :  That  he  never  had  any 
talk  with  Judge  Taney  or  the  President  of  the  United 
States  with  regard  to  the  Dred  Scott  decision  before  it 
was  made.  I  (Lincoln)  ought  to  know  that  the  man 
who  makes  a  charge  without  knowing  it  to  be  true, 
falsifies  as  much  as  he  who  knowingly  tells  a  falsehood ; 
and  lastly  that  he  would  pronounce  the  whole  thing  a 
falsehood ;  but  he  would  make  no  personal  application  of 
the  charge  of  falsehood,  not  because  of  any  regard  for 
the  'kind,  amiable,  intelligent  gentleman,'  but  because 
of  his  own  personal  respect.  I  have  understood  since 
then — but  [turning  to  Judge" Douglas]  will  not  hold  the 
Judge  to  it  if  he  is  not  willing — that  he  has  broken 
through  the  'self-respect,'  and  has  got  to  saying  the 
things  out.  The  Judge  nods  to  me  that  it  is  so. 

"It  is  fortunate  for  me  that  I  can  keep  as  good- 
humored  as  I  do,  when  the  Judge  acknowledged  that 
he  has  been  trying  to  make  a  question  of  veracity 
with  me.  I  know  the  Judge  is  a  great  man,  while  I 
am  only  a  small  man,  but  I  feel  that  I  have  got  him.  I 
demur  to  that  plea.  I  waive  all  objections  that  it  was 
not  filed  till  after  default  was  taken,  and  demur  to  it 
upon  the  merits.  What  if  Judge  Douglas  never  did 
talk  with  Chief  Justice  Taney  and  the  President  before 


364          LINCOLN'S   GREAT    SPEECHES. 

the  Dred  Scott  decision  was  made,  does  it  follow  that 
he  could  not  have  had  as  perfect  an  understanding 
without  talking  as  with  it? 

"I  am  not  disposed  to  stand  upon  my  legal  advan 
tages.  I  am  disposed  to  take  his  denial  as  being  like 
an  answer  in  chancery,  that  he  neither  had  any  knowl 
edge,  information  nor  belief  in  the  existence  of  such  a 
conspiracy. 

"I  am  disposed  to  take  his  answer  as  being  as  broad 
as  though  he  had  put  it  in  these  words.  And  now,  I 
ask,  even  if  he  had  done  so,  have  not  I  a  right  to  prove 
it  on  him,  and  to  offer  the  evidences  of  more  than  twe 
witnesses,  by  whom  to  prove  it ;  and  if  the  evidence 
proves  the  existence  of  the  conspiracy,  does  his  broad 
answer  denying  all  knowledge,  information  or  belief, 
disturb  the  fact?  It  can  only  show  that  he  was  used 
by  conspirators,  and  was  not  a  leader  of  them. 

"Now,  in  regard  to  reminding  me  of  the  moral  rule 
that  persons  who  tell  what  they  do  not  know  to  be  true 
falsify  as  much  as  those  who  knowingly  tell  falsehoods, 
I  remember  the  rule,  and  it  must  be  borne  in  mind 
that  in  what  I  have  to  read  to  you  I  do  not  say  that  I 
know  such  a  conspiracy  to  exist.  To  that  I  reply,  I 
believe  it.  If  the  Judge  says  that  I  do  not  believe  it, 
then  he  says  what  he  does  not  know,  and  falls  within 
his  own  rule,  that  he  who  asserts  a  thing  which  he  does 
not  know  to  be  true,  falsifies  as  much  as  he  who  know 
ingly  tells  a  falsehood.  I  want  to  call  your  attention 
to  a  little  discussion  on  that  branch  of  the  case,  and 
the  evidence  brought  my  mind  to  the  conclusion  which 
I  expressed  as  my  belief. 

"If,  in  arraying  that  evidence,  I  had  stated  anything 
that  was  false  or  erroneous,  it  needed  but  that  Judge 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          365 

Douglas  should  point  it  out,  and  I  would  have  taken  it 
back  with  all  the  kindness  in  the  world. 

"I  do  not  deal  in  that  way.  If  I  have  brought  for 
ward  anything  not  a  fact,  if  he  will  point  it  out,  it  will 
not  even  ruffle  me  to  take  it  back. 

"But  if  he  will  not  point  out  anything  erroneous  in 
the  evidence,  is  it  not  rather  for  him  to  show  by  a  com 
parison  of  the  evidence,  that  I  have  reasoned  falsely, 
than  to  call  the  'kind,  amiable  gentleman'  a  liar? 

44  If  I  have  reasoned  to  a  false  conclusion,  it  is  the 
vocation  of  an  able  debater  to  show  by  argument  that 
I  have  wandered  to  an  erroneous  conclusion. 

"I  want  to  ask  your  attention  to  a  portion  of  the 
Nebraska  bill  which  Judge  Douglas  has  quoted:  'It 
being  the  true  intent  and  meaning  of  this  act  not  to 
legislate  slavery  into  any  Territory  or  State,  nor  to 
exclude  it  therefrom ;  but  to  leave  the  people  thereof 
perfectly  free  to  form  and  regulate  their  domestic 
institutions  in  their  own  way,  subject  only  to  the  Con 
stitution  of  the  United  States. ' 

"Thereupon  Judge  Douglas  and  others  began  to 
argue  in  favor  of  'Popular  Sovereignty' — the  right  of 
the  people  to  have  slaves  if  they  wanted  them,  and  to 
exclude  slavery  if  they  did  not  want  them. 

"  *But,'  said  in  substance  a  Senator  from  Ohio  (Mr. 
Chase,  I  believe),  'we  more  than  suspect  that  you  do 
not  mean  to  allow  the  people  to  exclude  slavery,  if 
they  wish  to,  and  if  you  do  not  mean  it,  accept  an 
amendment  which  I  propose,  expressly  authorizing  the 
people  to  exclude  slavery.* 

"I  believe  I  have  the  amendment  before  me,  which 
was  offered,  and  under  which  the  people  of  the  Terri 
tory,  through  their  proper  representatives,  might,  if 


366          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

they  saw  fit,  prohibit  the  existence  of  slavery  therein. 
And  now  I  state  it  as  a  fact,  to  be  taken  back  if  there 
is  any  mistake  about  it,  that  Judge  Douglas  and  those 
acting  with  him  voted  that  amendment  down.  I  now 
think  that  those  men  who  voted  it  down  had  a  real 
reason  for  doing  so. 

"They  know  what  that  reason  was.  It  looks  to  us, 
since  we  have  seen  the  Dred  Scott  decision  pronounced, 
holding  that  'under  the  Constitution'  the  people  cannot 
exclude  slavery — I  say  it  looks  to  outsiders,  poor,  sim 
ple,  'amiable,  intelligent  gentlemen,'  as  though  the 
niche  was  left  as  a  place  to  put  that  Dred  Scott  decision 
in — a  niche  which  would  have  been  spoiled  by  adopting 
the  amendment. 

"And  now,  I  say  again,  if  this  was  not  the  reason,  it 
will  avail  the  Judge  much  more  to  calmly  and  good- 
humoredly  point  out  to  these  people  what  that  other 
reason  was  for  voting  the  amendment  down,  than, 
swelling  himself  up,  to  vociferate  that  he  may  be  pro 
voked  to  call  somebody  a  liar. 

"Again,  there  is  in  that  same  quotation  from  the 
Nebraska  bill  this  clause:  'It  being  the  true  intent  and 
meaning  of  this  bill  not  to  legislate  slavery  into  any 
Territory  or  State. ' 

"I  have  always  been  puzzled  to  know  what  business 
the  word  'State'  had  in  that  connection.  Judge 
Douglas  knows.  He  put  it  there.  He  knows  what  he 
put  it  there  for.  We  outsiders  cannot  say  what  he  put 
it  there  for.  The  law  that  they  were  passing  was  not 
about  States,  and  was  not  making  provisions  for 
States.  What  was  it  placed  there  for? 

"After  seeing  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  which  holds 
that  the  people  cannot  exclude  slavery  from  a  Terri- 


LINCOLN'S    GREAT   SPEECHES.          367 

tory,  if  another  Dred  Scott  shall  come,  holding  that 
they  cannot  exclude  it  from  a  State,  we  shall  discover 
that  when  the  word  was  originally  put  there,  it  was  in 
view  of  something  that  was  to  come  in  due  time,  we 
shall  see  that  it  was  the  other  half  of  something.  I 
now  say  again,  if  there  is  any  different  reason  for  put 
ting  it  there,  Judge  Douglas,  in  a  good-humored  way. 
without  calling  anybody  a  liar,  can  tell  what  the  reason 
was. 

'-'Quoting  from  Douglas's  speech,  'When  I  saw  that 
article  in  the  Union  on  the  i;th  of  November,  and 
this  clause  in  the  Constitution  asserting  the  doctrine 
that  a  State  has  no  right  to  exclude  slavery  within  its 
limits,  I  saw  that  there  was  a  fatal  blow  being  struck 
at  the  sovereignty  of  the  States  of  this  Union. '  I  stop 
the  quotation  there,  again  requesting  that  it  may  all 
be  read. 

"I  have  read  all  of  the  portion  that  I  desire  to  com 
ment  upon. 

"What  is  this  charge  that  the  Judge  thinks  I  must 
have  a  very  corrupt  heart  to  make? 

"It  was  the  purpose  on  the  part  of  certain  high 
functionaries  to  make  it  impossible  for  the  people  of  one 
State  to  prohibit  the  people  of  any  other  State  from 
entering  it  with  their  'property,'  so  called,  and  making 
it  a  slave  State. 

"In  other  words,  it  was  a  charge  implying  a  design 
to  make  the  institution  of  slavery  national. 

"And  now  I  ask  your  attention  to  what  Judge 
Douglas  has  himself  done  here.  I  know  he  made  that 
part  of  the  speech  as  a  reason  why  he  had  refused  to 
vote  for  a  certain  man  for  public  printer,  but  when  we 
get  at  it,  the  charge  itself  is  the  very  one  I  made 


368         LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

against  him,  that  he  thinks  I  am  so  corrupt  for  titter 
ing. 

"Now,  whom  does  he  make  that  charge  against? 
Does  he  make  it  against  that  newspaper  editor  merely? 
No ;  he  says  it  is  identical  in  spirit  with  the  Lecomp- 
ston  Constitution,  and  so  the  framers  of  that  Constitu 
tion  are  brought  in  with  the  editor  of  the  newspaper  in 
that  *  fatal  blow  being  struck.' 

"He  did  not  call  it  a  'conspiracy.'  In  his  language 
it  is  a  'fatal  blow  being  struck.' 

"And,  if  the  words  carry  the  meaning  better  when 
changed  from  a  'conspiracy'  into  a  'fatal  blow  being 
struck, '  I  will  change  my  expression  and  change  it  to 
a  'fatal  blow  being  struck.' 

"We  see  the  charge  made  not  merely  against  the 
editor  of  the  Union,  but  all  the  framers  of  the  Lecomp- 
ston  Constitution,  and  not  only  so,  but  the  article  was 
an  authoritative  article.  By  whose  authority? 

"Is  there  any  question  but  he  means  it  was  by  the 
authority  of  the  President  and  his  Cabinet — the 
administration? 

' '  Is  there  any  sort  of  question  but  he  means  to  make 
that  charge?  Then  there  are  the  editors  of  the  Union, 
the  framers  of  the  Lecompston  Constitution,  the  Presi 
dent  of  the  United  States  and  his  Cabinet,  and  all  the 
supporters  of  the  Lecompston  Constitution,  in  Con 
gress  and  out  of  Congress,  who  are  all  involved  in  this 
'fatal  blow  being  struck.' 

"I  commend  to  Judge  Douglas's  consideration  the 
question  of  how  corrupt  a  man's  heart  must  be  to  make 
such  a  charge ! 

"Now,  my  friends,  I  have  but  one  branch  of  the 
subject,  in  the  little  time  I  have  left,  to  which  to  call 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT    SPEECHES.          369 

your  attention,  and  as  I  shall  come  to  a  close  at  the  end 
of  that  branch,  it  is  probable  that  I  shall  not  occupy 
all  the  time  allotted  to  me.  Although  on  these  ques 
tions  I  would  like  to  talk  twice  as  long  as  I  have,  I 
could  not  enter  upon  another  head  and  discuss  it  prop 
erly  without  running  over  my  time. 

"I  ask  the  attention  of  the  people  here  assembled 
and  elsewhere,  to  the  course  that  Judge  Douglas  is 
pursuing  every  day  as  bearing  upon  this  question  of 
making  slavery  national.  Not  going  back  to  the 
records,  but  taking  the  speeches  he  makes,  the 
speeches  he  made  yesterday  and  the  day  before,  and 
makes  constantly  all  over  the  country — I  ask  your 
attention  to  them.  In  the  first  place,  what  is  neces 
sary  to  make  the  institution  national?  Not  war. 
There  is  no  danger  that  the  people  of  Kentucky  will 
shoulder  their  muskets,  and,  with  a  young  nigger  stuck 
on  every  bayonet,  march  to  Illinois  and  force  them 
upon  us. 

"There  is  no  danger  of  our  going  over  there  and 
making  war  upon  them.  Then  what  is  necessary  for 
the  nationalization  of  slavery? 

"It  is  simply  the  next  Dred  Scott  decision.  It  is 
merely  for  the  Supreme  Court  to  decide  that  no  State 
under  the  Constitution  can  exclude  it,  just  as  they 
have  already  decided  that  under  the  Constitution 
neither  Congress  nor  the  Territorial  Legislature  can 
do  it.  When  that  is  decided  and  acquiesced  in,  the 
whole  thing  is  done.  This  being  true,  and  this  being 
the  way,  as  I  think,  that  slavery  is  to  be  made 
national,  let  us  consider  what  Judge  Douglas  is  doing 
every  day  to  that  end. 

"In  the  first  place,  let  us  see  what  influence  he  is 


370          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

exerting  on  public  sentiment.  In  this  and  like  com 
munities,  public  sentiment  is  everything.  With  public 
sentiment,  nothing  can  fail,  without  it,  nothing  can 
succeed.  Consequently,  he  who  molds  public  senti 
ment  goes  deeper  than  he  who  enacts  statutes  or  pro 
nounces  decisions.  He  makes  statutes  and  decisions 
possible  or  impossible  to  be  executed.  This  must  be 
borne  in  mind,  as  also  the  additional  fact  that  Judge 
Douglas  is  a  man  of  vast  influence,  so  great  that  it  is 
enough  for  many  men  to  profess  to  believe  anything 
when  they  once  find  out  that  Judge  Douglas  professes 
to  believe  it.  Consider  also  the  attitude  he  occupies 
at  the  head  of  a  large  party — a  party  which  he  claims 
has  a  majority  of  all  the  votes  in  the  country.  This 
man  sticks  to  a  decision,  which  forbids  the  people  of  a 
territory  from  excluding  slavery,  and  he  does  so  not 
because  he  says  it  is  right  in  itself — he  does  not  give 
any  opinion  on  that — but  because  it  has  been  decided 
by  the  court,  and  being  decided  by  the  court,  he  is,  and 
you  are;  bound  to  take  .-it  in  your  political  action  as 
law — not  that  he  judges  at  all  of  its  merits,  but 
because  a  decision  of  the  court  is  to  him  a  'Thus  saith 
the  Lord.' 

"He  places  it  on  that  ground  alone,  and  you  will 
bear  in  mind  that,  thus  committing  himself  unreserv 
edly  to  this  decision,  he  commits  himself  to  the  next 
one  just  as  firmly  as  to  this.  He  did  not  commit  himself 
on  account  of  the  merit  or  demerit  of  the  decision,  but 
it  is  a 'Thus  saith  the  Lord.'  The  next  decision,  as 
much  as  this,  will  be  a  'Thus  saith  the  Lord.' 

"There  is  nothing  that  can  divert  or  turn  him  away 
from  this  decision.  It  is  nothing  that  I  point  out  to 
him  that  his  great  prototype,  General  Jackson,  did  not 


LINCOLN'S  GREAT  SPEECHES.          371 

so  believe  in  the  binding  force  of  decisions.  It  is 
nothing  that  Jefferson  did  not  so  believe.  I  have  said 
that  I  have  often  heard  him  approve  of  Jackson's 
course  in  disregarding  the  decision  of  the  Supreme 
Court  pronouncing  a  National  Bank  constitutional. 

4 'He  says  I  did  not  hear  him  say  so.  He  denies  the 
accuracy  of  my  recollections.  I  say  he  ought  to  know 
better  than  I,  but  I  will  make  no  question  about  this 
thing,  though  it  still  seems  to  me  that  I  heard  him  say 
it  twenty  times. 

"I  will  tell  him,  though,  that  he  now  claims  to  stand 
on  the  Cincinnati  platform,  which  affirms  that  Congress 
cannot  charter  a  National  Bank  in  the  teeth  of  that 
old-standing  decision  that  Congress  can  charter  a  bank. 
And  I  remind  him  of  another  piece  of  history  on  the 
question  of  respect  for  judicial  decisions,  and  it  is  a 
piece  of  Illinois  history,  belonging  to  a  time  when  the 
large  party  to  which  Judge  Douglas  belonged  were 
displeased  with  a  .decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
Illinois,  because  they  had  decided  that  a  Governor 
could  not  remove  a  Secretary  of  State.  You  will  find 
the  whole  story  in  Ford's  History  of  Illinois,  and  I 
know  that  Judge  Douglas  will  not  deny  that  he  was 
then  in  favor  of  overruling  that  decision  by  the  mode 
of  adding  five  new  Judges,  so  as  to  vote  down  the  four 
old  ones.  Not  only  so,  but  it  ended  in  the  Judge  sit 
ting  down  on  that  very  bench  as  one  of  the  five  new 
Judges  to  break  down  the  four  old  ones. 

"It  was  in  this  way  precisely  that  he  got  his  title  of 
Judge.  Now,  when  the  Judge  tells  me  that  men 
appointed  conditionally  to  sit  as  members  of  a  court 
will  have  to  be  catechised  beforehand  upon  some  sub 
ject,  I  say,  'You  know,  Judge;  you  have  tried  it.' 


372          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

"Whence  says  a  court  of  this  kind  will  lose  the  con 
fidence  of  all  men,  will  be  proctituted  and  disgraced  by 
such  a  proceeding,  I  say,  'You  know  best,  Judge;  you 
have  been  through  the  mill.'  But  I  cannot  shake 
Judge  Douglas's  teeth  loose  from  the  Dred  Scott 
Decision. 

"Like  some  obstinate  animal  (I  mean  no  disrespect) 
that  will  hang  on  when  he  has  once  got  his  teeth  fixed, 
you  may  cut  off  a  leg,  or  you  may  tear  away  an  arm, 
still  he  will  not  relax  his  hold.  And  so  I  may  point 
out  to  the  Judge,  and  say  that  he  is  bespattered  all 
over,  from  the  beginning  of  his  political  life  to  the 
present  time,  with  attacks  upon  judicial  decisions — I 
may  cut  off  limb  after  limb  of  his  public  record,  and 
strive  to  wrench  him  from  a  single  dictum  of  the 
court — yet  I  cannot  divert  him  from  it.  He  hangs,  to 
the  last,  to  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  These  things 
show  there  is  a  purpose  strong  as  death  and  eternity, 
for  which  he  adheres  to  this  decision,  and  for  which 
he  will  adhere  to  all  other  decisions  of  the  same 
court." 

A  Hibernian — "Give  us  something  beside  Dred 
Scott." 

Mr.  Lincoln — "Yes;  no  doubt  you  want  to  hear 
something  that  don't  hurt.  Now,  having  spoken  of 
the  Dred  Scott  decision,  one  more  word  and  I  am 
done. 

"Henry  Clay,  my  beau-ideal  of  a  statesman,  the  man 
for  whom  I  fought  all  my  humble  life — Henry  Clay 
once  said  of  a  class  of  men  who  would  repress  all  tend 
encies  to  liberty  and  ultimate  emancipation,  that  they 
must,  if  they  would  do  this,  go  back  to  the  era  of  our 
independence,  and  muzzle  the  cannon  which  thunders 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES,          373 

its  annual  joyous  return;  they  must  blow  out  the 
moral  lights  around  us;  they  must  penetrate  the 
human  soul,  and  eradicate  thence  the  love  of  liberty; 
and  then,  and  not  until  then,  could  they  perpetuate 
slavery  in  this  country!  To  my  thinking,  Judge 
Douglas  is,  by  his  example  and  vast  influence,  doing 
that  very  thing  in  this  vast  community,  when  he  says 
that  the  negro  has  nothing  in  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence.  , 

"Henry  Clay  plainly  understood  to  the  contrary. 
Judge  Douglas  is  going  back  to  the  era  of  our  Revolu 
tion,  and,  to  the  extent  of  his  ability,  muzzling  the 
cannon  which  thunders  its  annual  joyous  return. 
When  he  invites  any  people,  willing  to  have  slavery, 
to  establish  it,  he  is  blowing  out  the  moral  lights 
around  us.  When  he  says  he  *  cares  not  whether  slav 
ery  is  voted  down  or  voted  up' — that  it  is  a  sacred 
right  of  self-government — he  is,  in  my  judgment, 
penetrating  the  human  soul  and  eradicating  the  light 
of  reason  and  the  love  of  liberty  in  this  American 
people.  And  now  I  will  only  say  that  when,  by  all 
these  means  and  appliances,  Judge  Douglas  shall  suc 
ceed  in  bringing  public  sentiment  to  an  exact  accord 
ance  with  his  own  views — when  these  vast  assemblages 
shall  echo  back  all  these  sentiments — when  they  shall 
come  to  repeat  his  views  and  to  avow  his  principles, 
and  to  say  all  that  he  says  on  these  mighty  questions — 
then  it  needs  only  the  formality  of  the  second  Dred 
Scott  decision,  which  he  indorses  in  advance,  to  make 
slavery  alike  lawful  in  all  the  States — old  as  well  as 
new,  North  as  well  as  South. 

"My  friends,  that  ends  the  chapter.     The  Judge  can 
take  his  half  hour." 


374          LINCOLN'S   GREAT    SPEECHES. 

MR.  DOUGLAS'S   REPLY. 
(August  21,  1858.) 

"Fellow  Citizens:  "I  will  now  occupy  the  half-hour 
allotted  to  me  in  replying  to  Mr.  Lincoln.  The  first 
point  to  which  I  will  call  your  attention  is,  to  what  I 
said  about  the  organization  of  the  Republican  party  in 
1854,  and  the  platform  that  was  formed  on  the  5th  of 
October  of  that  year,  and  I  will  then  put  the  same 
question  to  Mr.  Lincoln  whether  or  not  he  approves  of 
each  article  in  that  platform,  and  ask  for  a  specific 
answer.  I  did  not  charge  him  with  being  a  member 
of  the  Committee  which  reported  that  platform. 

"I  charged  that  that  platform  was  the  platform  of 
the  Republican  party  adopted  by  them. 

"The  fact  that  it  was  the  platform  of  the  Republican 
party  is  not  denied,  but  Mr.  Lincoln  now  says,  that 
although  his  name  was  on  the  Committee  which 
reported  it,  he  does  not  think  he  was  there,  but  thinks 
he  was  in  Tazewell,  holding  court. 

"Now  I  want  to  remind  Mr.  Lincoln,  that  he  was  at 
Springfield  when  that  Convention  was  held  and  those 
resolutions  adopted. 

"The  point  I  am  going  to  remind  Mr.  Lincoln  of  is 
this:  That  after  I  had  made  my  speech  in  1854,  during 
the  fair,  he  gave  me  notice  that  he  was  going  to  reply 
to  me  the  next  day.  I  was  sick  at  the  time,  but  I 
stayed  over  in  Springfield  to  hear  his  reply  and  to  reply 
to  him. 

"On  that  day  this  very  Convention,  the  resolutions 
adopted,  which  I  have  read,  was  to  meet  in  the  Senate 
Chamber.  He  spoke  in  the  hall  of  the  House;  and 
\vhen  he  got  through  his  speech— my  recollection  is 
distinct,  and  I  shall  never  forget  it — Mr.  Codding 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT    SPEECHES.          375 

walked  in  as  I  took  the  stand  to  reply,  and  gave  notice 
that  the  Republican  State  Convention  would  meet 
instantly  in  the  Senate  Chamber,  and  called  upon  the 
Republicans  to  retire  there  and  go  into  this  very  Con 
vention,  instead  of  remaining  and  listening  to  me. 

"In  the  first  place,  Mr.  Lincoln -was  selected  by  the 
very  men  who  made  the  Republican  organization,  on 
that  day,  to  reply  to  me. 

"He  spoke  for  them  and  for  that  party,  and  lie  was 
the  leader  of  the  party ;  and  on  the  very  day  he  made 
his  speech  in  reply  to  me,  preaching  upon  this  same 
doctrine  of  negro  equality,  under  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  this  Republican  party  met  in  Conven 
tion. 

"Another  evidence  that  he  was  acting  in  concert 
with  them  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  that  Conven 
tion  waited  an  hour  after  its  time  of  meeting  to  hear 
Lincoln's  speech,  and  Codding,  one  of  their  leading- 
men,  marched  in  the  moment  Lincoln  got  through,  and 
gave  notice  that  they  did  not  want  to  hear  me,  and 
would  proceed  with  the  business  of  the  Convention. 

"Still  another  fact.  I  have  here  a  newspaper 
printed  at  Springfield,  Mr.  Lincoln's  own  town,  in 
October,  1854,  a  few  days  after  the  publishing  of  these 
resolutions,  charging  Mr.  Lincoln  with  entertaining 
these  sentiments,  and  trying  to  prove  that  they  were 
also  the  sentiments  of  Mr.  Yates,  then  candidate  for 
Congress. 

"This  has  been  published  on  Mr.  Lincoln  over  and 
over  again,  and  never  before  has  he  denied  it.  But, 
my  friends,  this  denial  of  his  that  he  did  not  act  on  the 
committee,  is  a  miserable  quibble  to  avoid  the  main 
issue,  which  is,  that  this  Republican  platform  declares 


376          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

in  favor  of  the  unconditional  repeal  of  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Law.  Has  Mr.  Lincoln  answered  whether  he 
indorsed  that  or  not?  I  called  his  attention  to  it  when 
I  first  addressed  you,  and  asked  him  for  an  answer,  and 
then  I  predicted  that  he  would  not  answer. .  How  does 
he  answer?  Why,  that  he  was  not  on  the  Committee 
that  wrote  the  resolutions. 

"I  then  repeated  the  next  proposition  contained  in 
the  resolutions,  which  was  to  restrict  slavery  in  those 
States  in  which  it  exists,  and  asked  him  whether  he 
indorsed  it.  Does  he  answer  yes  or  no?  He  says  in 
reply,  'I  was  not  on  the  Committee  at  the  time;  I 
was  up  in  Tazewell. ' 

"The  next  question  I  put  to  him  was,  whether  he 
was  in  favor  of  prohibiting  the  admission  of  any  more 
slave  States  into  the  Union. 

"I  put  the  question  to  him  distinctly,  whether,  if  the 
people  of  the  Territory,  when  they  had  sufficient  popu 
lation  to  make  a  State,  should  form  their  Constitution 
recognizing  slavery,  he  would  vote  for  or  against  its 
admission.  He  is  a  candidate  for  the  United  States 
Senate,  and  it  is  possible,  if  he  should  be  elected,  that 
he  would  have  to  vote  to  admit  a  State  into  the  Union, 
with  slavery  or  without  it,  as  its  own  people  might 
choose.  He  did  not  answer  that  question.  He  dodges 
that  question  also,  under  the  cover  that  he  was  not  on 
the  Committee  at  the  time,  that  he  was  not  present 
when  the  platform  was  made. 

"I  want  to  know,  if  he  should  happen  to  be  in  the 
Senate  when  a  State  applied  for  admission,  with  a 
Constitution  acceptable  to  her  own  people,  he  'would 
vote  to  admit  that  State,  if  slavery  was  one  of  its  insti 
tutions.  He  avoids  the  answer.  It  is  true,  he  gives 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          377 

the  Abolitionists  to  understand  by  a  hint  that  he  would 
not  vote  to  admit  such  a  State.  And  why?  He  goes 
on  to  say  that  the  man  who  would  talk  about  giving 
each  State  the  right  to  have  slavery,  or  not,  as  it 
pleased,  was  akin  to  the  man  who  would  muzzle  the 
guns  which  thundered  forth  the  annual  joyous  return 
of  the  day  of  our  independence. 

4 'He  says  that  that  kind  of  talk  is  casting  a  blight  on 
the  glory  of  the  country.  What  is  the  meaning  of  that? 
That  he  is  not  in  favor  of  each  State  to  have  the  right 
of  doing  as  it  pleases  on  the  slavery  question.  I  will 
put  the  questions  to  him  again  and  again,  and  I  intend 
to  force  it  out  of  him. 

"Then  again,  this  platform  which  was  made  at 
Springfield  by  his  own  party,  when  he  was  its  acknowl 
edged  head,  provides  that  'Republicans  will  insist  on 
the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia,' 
and  I  asked  Lincoln  specifically  whether  he  agreed 
with  them  in  that.  ["Did  you  get  an  answer?"]  He 
is  afraid  to  answer  it.  He  knows  that  I  will  trot  him 
down  to  Egypt.  I  intend  to  make  him  answer  there, 
or  I  will  show  the  people  of  Illinois  that  he  does  not 
intend  to  answer  these  questions. 

"The  Convention  to  which  I  have  been  alluding  goes 
a  little  further,  and  pledges  itself  to  exclude  slavery 
from  all  the  Territories  over  which  the  General  Gov 
ernment  has  exclusive  jurisdiction  north  of  36  degrees 
30  minutes,  as  well  as  south. 

"Now  I  want  to  know  whether  he  approves  that  pro 
vision.  I  want  him  to  answer,  and  when  he  does,  I 
want  to  know  his  opinion  on  another  point,  which  is, 
whether  he  will  redeem  the  pledge  of  the  platform  and 
resist  the  acquirement  of  any  more  territory,  unless 


378          LINCOLN'S    GREAT    SPEECHES. 

slavery  therein  shall  be  forever  prohibited.  I  want 
him  to  answer  the  last  question.  Each  of  the  ques 
tions  I  have  put  to  him  are  practical  questions,  ques 
tions  based  upon  the  fundamental  principles  of  the 
Black  Republican  party,  and  I  want  to  know  whether 
he  is  the  first,  last,  and  only  choice  of  a  party  with 
whom  he  does  not  agree  in  principle. 

"He  does  not  deny  but  that  that  principle  was 
unanimously  adopted  by  the  Republican  party ;  he  does 
not  deny  that  the  whole  Republican  party  is  pledged 
to  it ;  he  does  not  deny  that  a  man  who  is  not  faithful 
to  it  is  faithless  to  the  Republican  party;  and  I  now 
want  to  know  whether  that  party  is  unanimously  in 
favor  of  a  man  who  does  not  adopt  that  creed  and  agree 
with  them  in  their  principles.  I  want  to  know  whether 
the  man  who  does  not  agree  with  them,  and  who  is 
afraid  to  avow  his  differences,  and  who  dodges  the 
issue,  is  the  first,  last,  and  only  choice  of  the  Repub 
lican  party. ' ' 

A  voice — "How  about  the  conspiracy?" 

Mr.  Douglas — "Never  mind,  I  will  come  to  that  soon 
enough.  But  the  plot  from  which  I  have  read  to  you 
not  only  lays  down  these  principles,  but  it  adds : 

""  'Resolved,  That  in  furtherance  of  these  principles 
we  will  use  such  Constitutional  and  lawful  means  as 
shall  seem  best  adapted  to  their  accomplishment,  and 
that  we  will  support  no  man  for  office,  under  the  general 
or  State  Government,  who  is  not  positively  and  fully 
committed  to  the  support  of  these  principles,  and  whose 
personal  character  and  conduct  is  not  a  guaranty  that 
he  is  reliable,  and  who  shall  not  have  abjured  old  party 
allegiance  and  ties/ 

"The  Black  Republican  party  stands  pledged  that 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          379 

they  would  never  support  Lincoln  until  he  has  pledged 
himself  to  that  platform,  but  he  cannot  devise  his 
answer ;  he  has  not  made  up  his  mind  whether  he  will 
or  not. 

"He  talked  about  everything  else  he  could  think  of 
to  occupy  his  hour  and  a  half,  and  when  he  could  not 
think  of  anything  more  to  say,  without  an  excuse  for 
refusing  to  answer  these  questions,  he  sat  down  long 
before  his  time  was  out.  In  relation  to  Mr.  Lincoln's 
charge  of  conspiracy  against  me,  I  have  a  $vord  to  say. 

"In  his  speech  to-day  he  quotes  a  playful  part  of  his 
speech  at  Springfield,  about  Stephen  and  James,  and 
Franklin  and  Roger,  and  says  that  I  did  not  take 
exception  to  it.  I  did  not  answer  it,  and  he  repeats 
it  again.  I  did  not  take  exception  to  this  figure 
of  his. 

"He  has  a  right  to  be  as  playful  as  he  pleases  in 
throwing  his  arguments  together,  and  I  will  not  object; 
but  I  did  take  exception  to  his  second  Springfield 
speech,  in  which  he  stated  that  he  intended  his  first 
speech  as  a  charge  of  corruption  or  conspiracy  against 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  President 
Buchanan,  and  myself.  That  gave  the  offensive  char 
acter  to  the  charge.  He  then  said  that  when  he  made 
it  he  did  not  know  whether  it  was  true  or  not,  but  inas 
much  as  Judge  Douglas  had  not  denied  it,  although  he 
had  replied  to  the  other  parts  of  his  speech  three 
times,  he  repeated  it  as  a  charge  of  conspiracy  against 
me,  thus  charging  me  with  moral  turpitude.  When  he 
put  it  in  that  form,  I  did  say,  that  inasmuch  as  he 
repeated  the  charge  simply  because  I  had  not  denied  it, 
I  would  deprive  him  of  the  opportunity  of  ever  repeat 
ing  it  again,  by  declaring  that  it  was  in  all  its  bearings 


380          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

an  infamous  lie.  He  says  he  will  repeat  it  until  I 
answer  his  folly  and  nonsense  about  Stephen  and 
Roger,  and  Bob  and  James.  He  studied  that  out- 
prepared  that  one  sentence  with  the  greatest  care, 
committed  it  to  memory,  and  put  it  in  his  first  Spring 
field  speech,  and  now  he  carries  that  speech  around 
and  reads  that  sentence  to  show  how  pretty  it  is. 

44  His  vanity  is  wounded  because  I  will  not  go  into 
that  beautiful  figure  of  his  about  the  building  of  a 
hoiise.  All  I  have  to  say  is,  that  I  am  not  green 
enough  to  let  him  make  a  charge  which  he  acknowl 
edges  he  does  not  know  to  be  true,  and  then  take  up 
my  time  in  answering  it,  when  I  know  it  to  be  false 
and  nobody  else  knows  it  to  be  true.  I  have  not 
brought  a  charge  of  moral  turpitude  against  him. 
When  he,  or  any  other  man,  brings  one  against  me, 
instead  of  disproving  it,  I  will  say  that  it  is  a  lie,  and 
let  him  prove  it  if  he  can.  I  have  lived  twenty-five 
years  in  Illinois.  I  have  served  you  with  all  the  fidelity 
and  ability  which  I  possess,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  is  at 
liberty  to  attack  my  public  action,  my  votes,  and  my 
conduct ;  but  when  he  dares  to  attack  my  moral  integ 
rity,  by  a  charge  of  conspiracy  between  myself,  Chief  - 
Justice  Taney,  and  the  Supreme  Court,  and  two 
Presidents  of  the  United  States,  I  will  repel  it. 

"Mr.  Lincoln  has  not  character  enough  for  integrity 
and  truth,  merely  on  his  ipse  dixit,  to  arraign  Presi 
dent  Buchanan,  President  Pierce,  and  nine  Judges  of 
the  Supreme  Court,  not  one  of  whom  would  be  com 
plimented  by  being  put  on  an  equality  with  him. 

"There  is  an  unpardonable  presumption  in  a  man 
putting  himself  up  before  thousands  of  people,  and 
pretending  that  his  ipse  dixit,  without  proof,  without 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          381 

fact,  and  without  truth,  is  enough  to  bring  down  and 
destroy  the  purest  and  best  of  living  men. 

"Fellow-citizens,  my  time  is  fast  expiring;  I  must 
pass  on.  Mr.  Lincoln  wants  to  know  why  I  voted 
against  Mr.  Chase's  amendment  to  the  Nebraska  bill. 
I  will  tell  him.  In  the  first  place,  the  bill  already  con 
ferred  all  the  power  which  Congress  had,  by  giving  the 
people  the  whole  power  over  the  subject.  Chase 
offered  a  proviso  that  they  might  abolish  slavery, 
which,  by  implication,  would  convey  the  idea  that  they 
could  prohibit  slavery  by  not  introducing  that  institu 
tion. 

"General  Cass  asked  him  to  modify  his  amendment, 
so  as  to  provide  that  the  people  might  either  prohibit 
or  introduce  slavery,  and  thus  make  it  fair  and  equal. 

"Chase  refused  to  so  modify  his  proviso,  and  then 
General  Cass  and  all  the  rest  of  us  voted  it  down. 
Those  facts  appear  on  the  journals  and  debates  of 
Congress,  where  Mr.  Lincoln  found  the  charge,  and  if 
he  had  told  the  whole  truth,  there  would  have  been  no 
necessity  for  me  to  occupy  your  time  in  explaining  the 
matter. 

"Mr.  Lincoln  wants  to  know  why  the  word  'State' 
as  well  as  'Territory'  was  put  in  the  Nebraska  bill. 

"I  will  tell  him.  It  was  put  there  to  meet  just  such 
false  arguments  as  he  has  been  adducing. 

"That,  first,  not  only  the  people  of  the  Territories 
should  do  as  they  pleased,  but  that  when  they  came 
to  be  admitted  as  States,  they  should  come  into  the 
Union  with  or  without  slavery,  as  the  people  deter 
mined.  I  meant  to  knock  in  the  head  the  abolition  doc 
trine  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  that  there  shall  be  no  more  slave 
States,  even  if  the  people  want  them.  And  it  does  not 


382          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

do  for  him  to  say,  or  for  any  other  Black  Republican 
to  say,  that  there  is  nobody  in  favor  of  the  doctrine  of 
no  more  slave  States,  and  that  nobody  wants  to  inter 
fere  with  the  right  of  the  people  to  do  as  they  please. 

"What  was  the  origin  of  the  Missouri  difficulty  and 
the  Missouri  Compromise?  The  people  of  Missouri 
formed  a  Constitution  as  a  slave  State,  and  asked 
admission  into  the  Union,  but  the  Free  Soil  party  of 
the  North,  being  in  a  majority,  refused  to  admit  her 
because  she  had  slavery  as  one  of  her  institutions. 

"Hence  this  first  slavery  agitation  arose  upon  a  State 
and  not  upon  a  Territory,  and  yet  Mr.  Lincoln  does  not 
know  why  the  word  State  was  placed  in  the  Kansas- 
Nebraska  bill.  The  whole  abolition  agitation  arose  on 
that  doctrine  of  prohibiting  a  State  from  coming  in 
with  slavery  or  not,  as  it  pleased,  and  that  same  doc 
trine  is  here  in  this  Republican  platform  of  1854;  it 
has  never  been  repealed;  and  every  Black  Republican 
stands  pledged  by  that  platform  never  to  vote  for  any 
man  who  is  not  in  favor  of  it.  Yet  Mr.  Lincoln  does 
not  know  that  there  is  a  man  in  the  world  who  is  in 
favor  of  preventing  a  State  from  coming  in  as  it 
pleases,  notwithstanding  the  Springfield  platform 
says  that  they,  the  Republican  party,  will  not  allow  a 
State  to  come  in  under  such  circumstances.  He  is  an 
ignorant  man. 

"Now  }^ou  see  that  upon  these  very  points  I  am  as 
far  from  bringing  Mr.  Lincoln  up  to  the  line  as  I  ever 
was  before.  He  does  not  want  to  avow  his  principles, 
I  do  want  to  avow  mine,  as  clear  as  sunshine  in  mid 
day.  Democracy  is  founded  upon  the  eternal  principle 
of  right.  The  plainer  these  principles  are  avowed 
before  the  people,  the  stronger  will  be  the  support 


LISTENING    BUT   NOT    CONVINCED. 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          385 

which  they  will  receive.  I  only  wish  I  had  the  power 
to  make  them  so  clear  that  they  would  shine  in  the 
heavens  for  every  man,  woman,  and  child  to  read. 

"The  first  of  those  principles  that  I  would  proclaim 
would  be  in  opposition  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  doctrine  of 
uniformity  between  the  different  States,  and  I  would 
declare  instead  the  sovereign  right  of  each  State  to 
decide  the  slavery  question  as  well  as  all  other  domes 
tic  questions  for  themselves,  without  interference  from 
any  other  State  or  power  whatsoever. 

"When  that  principle  is  recognized  you  will  have 
peace  and  harmony  and  fraternal  feeling  between  all 
the  States  of  this  Union ;  until  you  do  recognize  that 
doctrine  there  will  be  sectional  warfare  agitating  and 
distracting  the  country.  What  does  Mr.  Lincoln  pro 
pose?  He  says  that  the  Union  cannot  exist  divided 
into  free  and  slave  States.  If  it  cannot  endure  thus 
divided,  then  he  must  strive  to  make  them  all  free  or 
all  slave,  which  will  inevitably  bring  about  the  dissolu 
tion  of  the  Union. 

"Gentlemen,  I  am  told  that  my  time  is  out,  and  I  am 
obliged  to  stop. ' ' 


LINCOLN'S  GREAT  COOPER  INSTITUTE  SPEECH. 

Delivered  at  Cooper  Institute,  New  York  City,  Feb 
ruary  27,  1860.  This  speech,  more  than  any  other  one, 
is  supposed  to  have  secured  Lincoln  the  nomination  for 
the  Presidency. 

"Mr.  President  and  Fellow-Citizens  of  New  York: 
The  facts  with  which  I  shall  deal  this  evening  are 
mainly  old  and  familiar;  nor  is  there  anything  new  in 


386          LINCOLN'S   GREAT    SPEECHES. 

the  general  use  I  shall  make  of  them.  If  there  shall 
be  any  novelty,  it  will  be  in  the  mode  of  presenting  the 
facts,  and  the  references  and  observations  following 
that  presentation. 


OUR  FATHERS  AND  THE  CONSTITUTION. 

"In  his  speech  last  autumn  at  Columbus,  Ohio,  as 
reported  in  the  New  York  Times,  Senator  Douglas 
said: 

"  'Our  fathers,  when  they  framed  the  Government 
under  which  we  live,  understood  this  question  just  as 
well  and  even  better  than  we  do  now. ' 

"I  fully  endorse  this,  and  I  adopt  it  as  a  text  for  this 
discourse.  I  so  adopt  it  because  it  furnishes  a  precise 
and  agreed  starting  point  for  a  discussion  between 
Republicans  and  that  wing  of  Democracy  headed  by 
Senator  Douglas.  It  simply  leaves  the  inquiry:  'What 
was  the  understanding  those  fathers  had  of  the  ques 
tion  mentioned?  What  is  the  frame  of  government 
under  which  we  live?' 

"The  answer  must  be:  'The  Constitution  of  the 
United  States. ' 

"That  Constitution  consists  of  the  original,  framed 
in  1787  (and  under  which  the  present  Government  first 
went  into  operation),  and  twelve  subsequently  framed 
amendments,  the  first  ten  of  which  were  framed  in 
1789. 

"Who  were  our  fathers  who  framed  the  Constitution? 
I  suppose  the  'thirty-nine'  who  signed  the  original 
instrument  may  be  fairly  called  our  fathers  who  framed 
that  part  of  our  present  Government.  It  is  almost 
exactly  true  to  say  they  framed  it,  and  it  is  altogether 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          387 

true  to  say  they  fairly  represented  the  opinion  and 
sentiment  of  the  whole  nation  at  that  time.  Their 
names,  being  familiar  to  nearly  all,  and  accessible  to 
quite  all,  need  not  be  repeated. 

"I  take  these  'thirty-nine,'  for  the  present,  as  being 
'our  fathers  who  framed  the  Government  under  which 
we  live.' 

"What  is  the  question  which,  according  to  the  text, 
those  fathers  understood  just  as  well  and  even  better 
than  we  do  now? 


THE  GREAT  ISSUE. 

"It  is  this:  Does  the  proper  division  of  local  from 
Federal  authority,  or  anything  in  the  Constitution, 
forbid  our  Federal  Government  to  control  us  as  to  slav 
ery  in  our  Federal  Territories? 

"Upon  this  Douglas  holds  the  affirmative,  and 
Republicans  the  negative.  This  affirmative  and  denial 
form  an  issue ;  and  this  issue — this  question — is  pre 
cisely  what  the  text  declares  our  fathers  understood 
better  than  we. 

"In  1784 — three  years  before  the  Constitution — the 
United  States  then  owning  the  Northwestern  Terri 
tory,  and  no  other — the  Congress  of  the  Confederation 
had  before  them  the  question  of  prohibiting  slavery  in 
that  Territory;  and  four  of  the  'thirty-nine'  who  after 
ward  framed  the  Constitution  were  in  that  Congress, 
and  voted  on  that  question. 

"Of  these,  Roger  Sherman,  Thomas  Miffiin,  and 
Hugh  Williamson  voted  for  the  prohibition — thus 
showing  that,  in  their  understanding,  no  line  divided 


388          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

local  from  Federal  authority,  nor  anything  else  prop 
erly  forbade  the  Federal  Government  to  control  as  to 
slavery  in  Federal  territory. 

"The  other  of  the  four — James  McHenry — voted 
against  the  prohibition,  showing  that,  for  some  cause  ^ 
he  thought  it  improper  to  vote  for  it. 


ORDINANCE  OF  1787. 

"In  1787,  still  before  the  Constitution,  but  while  the 
Convention  was  in  session  framing  it,  and  while  the 
Northwest  Territory  was  the  only  territory  owned  by 
the  United  States,  the  same  question  of  prohibiting 
slavery  in  the  territory  again  came  before  the  Congress 
of  the  Confederation,  and  three  more  of  the  'thirty- 
nine'  who  afterward  signed  the  Constitution  were  in 
that  Congress,  and  voted  on  that  question. 

"They  were:  William  Blount,  William  Few,  and 
Abraham  Baldwin,  and  they  all  voted  for  the  prohibi 
tion — thus  showing  that,  in  their  understanding,  no 
line  divided  local  from  Federal  authority,  nor  anything 
else  properly  forbade  the  Federal  Government  to  con 
trol  as  to  slavery  in  Federal  territory.  This  time  the 
prohibition  became  a  law,  being  a  part  of  what  is  now 
known  as  the  ordinance  bf  '87. 

"The  question  of  Federal  control  of  slavery  in  the 
Territories  seems  nolt  to  have  been  directly  before  the 
convention  which  framed  the  original  Constitution; 
and  hence  it  is  not  recorded  that  the  *  thirty-nine,'  or 
any  of  them,  while  engaged  on  that  instrument, 
expressed  any  opinion  on  that  precise  question. 


LINCOLN'S  GREAT   SPEECHES.          389 

THE  FIRST  CONGRESS. 

"In  1789,  by  the  tirst  Congress  which  sat  under  the 
Constitution,  an  act  was  passed  to  enforce  the  ordi 
nance  of  '87,  including  the  prohibition  of  slavery  in  the 
Northwestern  Territory.  The  bill  for  this  act  was 
reported  by  one  of  the  'thirty-nine,'  Thomas  Fitzsim- 
mons,  then  a  member  of  the  House  of  Representatives 
from  Pennsylvania. 

"It  went  through  all  its  stages  without  a  word  of 
opposition,  and  finally  passed  both  branches  without 
yeas  or  nays,  which  is  equivalent  to  a  unanimous  pas 
sage.  In  this  Congress  there  were  sixteen  of  the 
'thirty-nine'  fathers  who  framed  the  original  Constitu 
tion. 

"They  were:  John  Langdon,  Nicholas  Oilman,  Wil 
liam  S.  Johnson,  Roger  Sherman,  Robert  Morris, 
George  Clymer,  William  Few,  Abraham  Baldwin, 
Rufus  King,  William  Patterson,  Richard  Bassett, 
George  Read,  Pierce  Butler,  Daniel  Carroll,  James 
Madison,  Thomas  Fitzsimmons. 

"This  shows  that  in  their  understanding  no  line 
dividing  local  from  Federal  authority,  nor  anything  in 
the  Constitution,  properly  forbade  Congress  to  prohibit 
slavery  in  the  Federal  territory,  else  both  their  fidelity 
to  correct  principle  and  their  oath  to  support  the  Con 
stitution  would  have  constrained  them  to  oppose  the 
prohibition. 

GEORGE  WASHINGTON. 

"Again,  George  Washington,  another  of  the  'thirty- 
nine,  '  was  then  President  of  the  United  States,  and,  as 
such,  approved  and  signed  the  bill,  thus  completing  its 
validity  as  a  law,  and  thus  showing  that,  in  his  under- 


390          LINCOLN'S   GREAT    SPEECHES. 

standing,  no  line  dividing  local  from  Federal  authority, 
nor  anything  in  the  Constitution,  forbade  the  Federal 
Government  to  control  slavery  in  the  Federal  territory. 


THE  FIRST  TERRITORIES. 

"No  great  while  after  the  adoption  of  the  original 
Constitution,  North  Carolina  ceded  to  the  Federal 
Government  the  country  now  constituting  the  State  of 
Tennessee,  and  a  few  years  later  Georgia  ceded  that 
which  now  constitutes  the  States  of  Mississippi  and 
Alabama.  In  both  deeds  of  cession  it  was  made  a  con 
dition  by  the  ceding  States  that  the  Federal  Govern 
ment  should  not  prohibit  slavery  in  the  ceded  country. 
Besides  this,  slavery  was  already  in  the  ceded  country. 
Under  these  circumstances,  Congress,  on  taking 
charge  of  these  countries,  did  not  absolutely  prohibit 
slavery  within  them.  But  they  did  interfere  with  it, 
take  control  of  it,  even  there,  to  a  certain  extent. 

"In  1798,  Congress  organized  the  Territory  of  Mis 
sissippi.  In  the  act  of  organization  they  prohibited 
the  bringing  of  slaves  into  the  Territories  from  any 
place  without  the  United  States,  by  fine,  and  giving 
freedom  to  slaves  so  brought. 

"This  act  passed  both  branches  of  Congress  without 
yeas  and  nays.  In  that  Congress  were  three  of  the 
'thirty-nine'  who  framed  the  original  Constitution. 
They  were  John  Langdon,  George  Read,  and  Abraham 
Baldwin. 

"They  all,  probably,  voted  for  it.  Certainly  they 
would  have  placed  their  opposition  to  it  upon  the 
record  if,  in  their  understanding,  any  line  dividing  the 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          391 

local  from  Federal  authority,  or  anything  in  the  Con 
stitution,  properly  forbade  the  Federal  Government  to 
control  as  to  slavery  in  Federal  territory. 


THE  LOUISIANA  COUNTRY. 

"In  1803,  the  Federal  Government  purchased  the 
Louisiana  country.  Our  former  territorial  acquisitions 
came  from  certain  of  our  own  States;  but  this  Louis 
iana  country  was  acquired  from  a  foreign  nation.  In 
1804,  Congress  gave  a  territorial  organization  to  that 
part  of  it  which  now  constitutes  the  State  of  Louisiana. 
New  Orleans,  lying  within  that  part,  was  an  old  and 
comparatively  large  city. 

"There  were  other  considerable  towns  and  settle 
ments,  and  slavery  was  extensively  and  thoroughly 
intermingled  with  the  people.  Congress  did  not,  in 
the  territorial  act,  prohibit  slavery;  but  they  did  inter 
fere  with  it — take  control  of  it — in  a  more  marked  and 
extensive  way  than  they  did  in  the  case  of  Mississippi. 
The  substance  of  the  provision  therein  made,  in  rela 
tion  to  slaves,  was : 

"First:  That  no  slaves  should  be  imported  into  the 
Territory  from  foreign  parts. 

"Second:  That  no  slaves  should  be  carried  into  it 
who  had  been  imported  into  the  United  States  since 
the  first  day  of  May,  1798. 

"Third:  That  no  slave  should  be  carried  into  it, 
except  by  the  owner,  and  for  his  own  use  as  a  settler ; 
the  penalty  in  all  the  cases  being  a  fine  upon  the 
violator  of  the  law,  and  freedom  to  the  slave. 

"This  act,  also,   was  passed  without  yeas  and  nays.] 


392          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

In  the  Congress  which  passed  it  there  were  two  of  the 
'thirty-nine.'  They  were  Abraham  Baldwin  and 
Jonathan  Dayton.  As  stated  in  the  case  of  Mississippi, 
it  is  probable  they  both  voted  for  it;  they  would  not 
have  allowed  it  to  pass  without  recording  their  opposi 
tion  to  it,  if,  in  their  understanding,  it  violated  either 
the  line  properly  dividing  local  from  Federal  authority, 
or  any  provision  of  the  Constitution. 


THE  MISSOURI  QUESTION. 

"In  1819-20  came,  and  passed,  the  Missouri  question. 
Many  votes  were  taken  by  yeas  and  nays,  in  both 
branches  of  Congress,  upon  the  various  phases  of  the 
general  question. 

"Two  of  the  'thirty-nine' — Rufus  King  and  Charles 
Pinckney — were  members  of  that  Congress.  Mr.  King 
steadily  voted  for  slavery  prohibition  and  against  all 
compromises.  By  this  Mr.  King  showed  that,  in  his 
understanding,  no  line,  dividing  local  from  Federal 
authority,  nor  anything  in  the  Constitution,  was 
violated  by  Congress  prohibiting  slavery  in  Federal 
territory;  while  Mr.  Pinckney,  by  his  votes,  showed 
that,  in  his  understanding,  there  was  some  different 
reason  for  opposing  such  prohibition  in  the  case. 

"The  cases  I  have  already  mentioned  are  the  only 
acts  of  the  'thirty-nine,'  or  any  of  them,  upon  the 
direct  issue  which  I  have  been  able  to  discover. 

"To  enumerate  the  persons  who  thus  acted,  as  being 
four  in  1784,  three  in  1787,  seventeen  in  1789,  three  in 
1798,  two  in  1 804,' and  two  in  1819-20, — there  would  be 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          393 

thirty-one  of  them.  But  this  would  be  counting  John 
Langdon,  Roger  Sherman,  William  Few,  Rufus  King, 
and  George  Read,  each  twice,  and  Abraham  Baldwin 
three  times. 

"The  true  number  of  those  of  the  'thirty-nine'  whom 
I  have  shown  to  have  acted  upon  the  question,  which, 
by  the  text,  they  understood  better  than  we,  is  twenty- 
three,  leaving  sixteen  not  shown  to  have  acted  upon  it 
in  any  way. 

"Here,  then,  we  have  twenty-three  of  our  'thirty- 
nine'  fathers  who  framed  the  Government  under  which 
we  live,  who  have,  upon  their  official  responsibility  and 
their  corporal  oaths,  acted  upon  the  very  question 
which  the  text  affirms  they  'understood  just  as  well, 
and  even  better  than  we  do  now' ;  and  twenty-one  of 
them — a  clear  majority  of  the  whole  'thirty-nine' — so 
acting  upon  it  as  to  make  them  guilty  of  a  gross 
political  impropriety  and  willful  perjury,  if,  in  their 
understanding,  any  proper  division  between  local  and 
Federal  authority,  or  anything  in  the  Constitution  they 
had  made  themselves  and  sworn  to  support,  forbade 
the  Federal  Government  to  control,  as  to  slavery,  in 
the  Federal  Territories.  Thus  the  twenty-one  acted; 
and,  as  actions  speak  louder  than  words,  so  actions 
under  such  responsibility  speak  still  louder. 

"Two  of  the  twenty-three  voted  against  Congres 
sional  prohibition  of  slavery  in  the  Federal  Territories, 
in  the  instances  in  which  they  acted  upon  the  question. 
But  for  what  reasons  they  so  voted  is  not  known. 
They  may  have  done  so  because  they  thought  a  proper 
division  of  local  from  Federal  authority,  or  some  pro 
vision  or  principle  of  the  Constitution,  stood  in  the 
way;  or  they  may,  without  any  such  question,  have 


394          LINCOLN'S   GREAT    SPEECHES. 

voted  against  the  prohibition  on  what  appeared  to  them 
to  be  sufficient  grounds  of  inexpediency. 

"No  one  who  has  sworn  to  support  the  Constitution 
can  conscientiously  vote  for  what  he  understands  to  be 
an  unconstitutional  measure,  however  expedient  he 
may  think  it;  but  one  may  and  ought  to  vote  against  a 
measure  which  he  deems  constitutional,  if,  at  the  same 
time,  he  deems  it  inexpedient. 

"It,  therefore,  would  be  unsafe  to  set  down  even  the 
two  who  voted  against  the  prohibition,  as  having  done 
so,  because,  in  their  understanding,  any  proper  division 
of  local  from  Federal  authority,  or  anything  in  the 
Constitution,  forbade  the  Federal  Government  to  con 
trol  as  to  slavery  in  Federal  Territory. 

"The  remaining  sixteen  of  the  'thirty-nine,'  so  far 
as  I  have  discovered,  have  left  no  record  of  their 
understanding  upon  the  direct  question  of  Federal  con 
trol  of  slavery  in  the  Federal  Territories.  But  there  is 
much  reason  to  believe  that  their  understanding  upon 
that  question  would  not  have  appeared  different  from 
that  of  their  twenty-three  compeers,  had  it  been  mani 
fested  at  all. 

"For  the  purpose  of  adhering  rigidly  to  the  text,  I 
have  purposely  omitted  whatever  understanding  may 
have  been  manifested  by  any  person,  however  dis 
tinguished,  other  than  the  'thirty-nine*  fathers  who 
framed  the  original  Constitution;  and,  for  the  same 
reason,  I  have  also  omitted  whatever  understanding 
may  have  been  manifested  by  any  of  the  'thirty-nine,' 
even  on  any  other  phase  of  the  general  question  of 
slavery.  If  we  should  look  into  their  acts  and  declara 
tions  on  these  other  phases,  as  the  foreign  slave  trade, 
and  the  morality  and  policy  of  slavery  generally,  it 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT    SPEECHES,          395 

would  appear  to  us  that  on  the  direct  question  of 
Federal  control  of  slavery  in  Federal  Territories,  the 
sixteen,  if  they  had  acted  at  all,  would  probably  have 
acted  just  as  the  twenty-three  did.  Among  that  six 
teen  were  several  of  the  most  noted  anti-slavery  men 
of  the  times — as  Dr.  Franklin,  Alexander  Hamilton, 
and  Gouverneur  Morris — while  there  is  not  one  now 
known  to  have  been  otherwise,  unless  it  may  have  been 
John  Rutledge,  of  South  Carolina. 

SUMMARY. 

"The  sum  of  the  whole  is,  that  of  our  'thirty-nine* 
fathers  who  framed  the  original  Constitution,  twenty- 
one — a  clear  majority  of  the  whole — certainly  under 
stood  that  no  proper  division  of  local  from  Federal 
authority,  nor  any  part  of  the  Constitution,  forbade 
the  Federal  Government  to  control  slavery  in  the 
Federal  Territories;  while  all  ftie  rest  probably  had 
the  same  understanding.  Such,  unquestionably,  was 
the  understanding  of  our  fathers  who  framed  the  orig 
inal  Constitution;  and  the  text  affirms  that  they 
understood  the  question  better  than  we. 

AMENDMENT  TO  THE  CONSTITUTION 

"But,  so  far,  I  have  been  considering  the  under 
standing  of  the  question  manifested  by  the  framers  of 
the  original  Constitution.  In  and  by  the  original 
instrument,  a  mode  was  provided  for  amending  it ;  and, 
as  I  have  already  stated,  the  present  frame  of  Govern 
ment  under  which  we  live  consists  of  that  original  and 
twelve  amendatory  articles  framed  and  adopted  since. 


396          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

"  Those  who  now  insist  that  Federal  control  of  slav 
ery  in  Federal  Territories  violates  the  Constitution, 
point  us  to  the  provisions  which  they  suppose  it  thus 
violates;  and,  as  I  understand,  they  all  fix  upon  pro 
visions  in  these  amendatory  articles,  and  not  in  the 
original  instrument.  The  Supreme  Court,  in  the  Dred 
Scott  case,  plant  themselves  Upon  the  fifth  amendment, 
which  provides  that  'no  person  shall  be  deprived  of 
property  without  due  process  of  law' ;  while  Senator 
Douglas  and  his  peculiar  adherents  plant  themselves 
upon  the  tenth  amendment,  providing  that  'the  powers 
granted  by  the  Constitution  are  reserved  to  the  States 
respectively,  and  to  the  people. ' 

"Now,  it  so  happens  that  these  amendments  were 
framed  by  the  first  Congress  which  sat  under  the  Con 
stitution — the  identical  Congress  which  passed  the  act 
already  mentioned,  enforcing  the  prohibition  of  slavery 
in  the  Northwestern  Territory.  Not  only  was  it  the 
same  Congress,  but  they  were  the  identical,  same  indi 
vidual  men  who,  at  the  same  session,  and  at  the  same 
time  within  the  session,  had  under  consideration,  and 
in  progress  toward  maturity,  these  constitutional 
amendments  and  this  act  prohibiting  slavery  in  all  the 
territory  the  nation  then  owned.  The  constitutional 
amendments  were  introduced  before  and  passed  after 
the  act  enforcing  the  ordinance  of  1787,  so  that  dur 
ing  the  whole  pendency  of  the  act  to  enforce  the  ordi 
nance,  the  constitutional  amendments  were  also 
pending. 

"That  Congress,  consisting  of  all  the  seventy-six 
members,  including  sixteen  of  the  framers  of  the  orig 
inal  Constitution,  as  before  stated,  were  pre-eminently 
our  fathers  who  framed  that  part  of  the  Government 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          397 

under  which  we  live,  which  is  now  claimed  as  forbid 
ding  the  Federal  Government  to  control  slavery  in  the 
Federal  Territories. 

"Is  it  not  a  little  presumptuous  in  any  one  at  this 
day  to  affirm  that  the  two  things  which  that  Congress 
deliberately  framed,  and  carried  to  maturity  at  the 
same  time,  are  absolutely  inconsistent  with  each  other? 
And  does  not  such  affirmation  become  impudently 
absurd  with  the  other  affirmation  from  the  same  mouth, 
that  those  who  did  the  two  things  alleged  to  be  incon 
sistent,  understood  whether  they  really  were  incon 
sistent  better  than  we — better  than  he  who  affirms  that 
they  are  inconsistent? 

"It  is  surely  safe  to  assume  that  the  *  thirty-nine' 
framers  of  the  original  Constitution,  and  the  seventy- 
six  members  of  the  Congress  which  framed  the  amend 
ments  thereto,  taken  together,  do  certainly  include 
those  who  may  be  fairly  called  our  fathers  who  framed 
the  Government  under  which  we  live.  And  so  assum 
ing,  I  defy  any  man  to  show  that  any  one  of  them  ever 
in  his  whole  life  declared  that,  in  his  understanding, 
any  proper  division  of  local  from  Federal  authority,  or 
any  part  of  the  Constitution,  forbade  the  Federal  Gov 
ernment  to  control  slavery  in  the  Federal  territories. 


I  GO  A  STEP  FARTHER. 

"I  go  a  step  farther.  I  defy  any  one  to  show  that 
any  living  man  in  the  whole  world  ever  did,  prior  to 
the  beginning  of  the  present  century  (and  I  might 
almost  say  prior  to  the  beginning  of  the  last  half  of  the 
present  century),  declare  that,  in  his 


393          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

any  proper  division  of  local  from  Federal  authority,  or 
any  part  of  the  Constitution,  forbade  the  Federal 
Government  to  control  as  to  slavery  in  the  Federal 
Territories. 

"To  those  who  now  so  declare,  I  give,  not  only  'our 
fathers  who  framed  the  Government  under  which  we 
live, '  but  with  them  all  other  living  men  within  the 
century  in  which  it  was  framed,  among  whom  to 
search,  and  they  shall  not  be  able  to  find  the  evidence 
of  a  single  man  agreeing  with  them. 


LET  THERE  BE  NO  MISUNDERSTANDING. 

4 'Now,  and  here,  let  me  guard  a  little  against  being 
misunderstood.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  we  are  bound  to 
follow  implicitly  in  whatever  our  fathers  did.  To  do 
so  would  be  to  discard  all  the  lights  of  current  experi 
ences — to  reject  all  progress — all  improvement.  What 
I  do  say  is,  that  if  we  would  supplant  the  opinions  and 
policy  of  our  fathers  in  any  case,  we  should  do  so  upon 
evidence  so  conclusive,  and  argument  so  clear,  that 
even  their  great  authority,  fairly  considered  and 
weighed,  cannot  stand,  and  most  surely  not  in  a  case 
whereof  we  ourselves  declare  they  understood  the  ques 
tion  better  than  we. 

"If  any  man,  at  this  day,  sincerely  believes  that  a 
proper  division  of  local  from  Federal  authority,  or  any 
part  of  the  Constitution,  forbids  the  Federal  Govern 
ment  to  control  as  to  slavery  in  the  Federal  Territories, 
he  is  right  to  say  so,  and  to  enforce  his  position  by  all 
truthful  evidence  and  fair  argument  which  he  can. 

"But  he  has  no  right  to  mislead  others,  who  have 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT    SPEECHES.          399 

less  access  to  history  and  less  leisure  to  study  it, 
into  the  false  belief  that  'our  fathers  who  framed  the 
Government  under  which  we  live'  were  of  the  same 
opinion — thus  substituting  falsehood  and  deception  for 
truthful  evidence  and  fair  argument. 

"If  any  man  at  this  day  sincerely  believes  'our 
fathers  who  framed  the  Government  under  which  we 
live'  used  and  applied  principles,  in  other  cases,  which 
ought  to  have  led  them  to  understand  that  a  proper 
division  of  local  from  Federal  authority,  or  some  part 
of  the  Constitution,  forbids  the  Federal  Government  to 
control  slavery  in  the  Federal  Territories,  he  is  right 
to  do  so. 

"But  he  should,  at  the  same  time,  brave  the  responsi 
bility  of  declaring  that,  in  his  opinion,  he  understands 
their  principles  better  than  they  did  themselves ;  and 
especially  should  he  not  shirk  that  responsibility  by 
asserting  that  they  'understood  the  question  just  as 
well,  and  even  better,  than  we  do  now.' 

4 'But  enough.  Let  all  who  believe  that  'our  fathers 
who  framed  the  Government  under  which  we  live, 
understood  this  question  just  as  well,  and  even  better 
than  we  do  now, '  speak  as  they  spoke,  and  act  as  they 
acted  upon  it.  This  is  all  Republicans  ask — all  Repub 
licans  desire — in  relation  to  slavery.  As  those  fathers 
marked  it,  so  let  it  again  be  marked,  as  an  evil  not  to 
be  extended,  but  to  be  tolerated  and  protected  only 
because  of  and  so  far  as,  its  actual  presence  among  us 
makes  that  toleration  and  protection  a  necessity.  Let 
all  the  guarantees  those  fathers  gave  it,  be,  not 
grudgingly,  but  fully  and  fairly,  maintained.  For  this 
Republicans  contend,  and  with  this,  so  far  as  I  know  or 
believe,  they  will  be  content. 


400         LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

A  FEW  WORDS  FROM  MR.  LINCOLN  TO  THE 
SOUTHERN  PEOPLE. 

"And  now,  if  they  would  listen — as  I  suppose  they 
will  not — I  would  address  a  few  words  to  the  Southern 
people. 

* '  I  would  say  to  them :  You  consider  yourselves  a 
reasonable  and  just  people,  and  I  consider  that  in  the 
general  qualities  of  reason  and  justice  you  are  not 
inferior  to  any  other  people.  Still,  when  you  speak  of 
us  Republicans  you  do  so  only  to  denounce  us  as 
reptiles,  or,  at  the  best,  as  no  better  than  outlaws. 
You  will  grant  a  hearing  to  pirates  or  murderers,  but 
nothing  like  it  to  'Black  Republicans.'  In  all  your 
contentions  with  one  another,  each  of  you  deems  an 
unconditional  condemnation  of  'Black  Republicanism' 
as  the  first  thing  to  be  attended  to.  Indeed,  such  con 
demnation  "of  us  seems  to  be  an  indispensable  pre 
requisite — license,  so  to  speak — among  you,  to  be 
admitted  or  permitted  to  speak  at  all. 

"Now,  can  you,  or  not,  be  prevailed  upon  to  pause 
and  consider  whether  this  is  quite  just  to  us,  or  even  to 
yourselves? 

"BRING  FORWARD  YOUR  CHARGES." 

"Bring  forward  your  charges  and  specifications,  and 
then  be  patient  long  enough  to  hear  us  deny  or  justify. 

"You  say  we  are  sectional.  We  deny  it.  That 
makes  an  issue;  and  the  burden  of  the  proof  is  upon 
you.  You  produce  your  proof ;  and  what  is  it?  Why, 
that  our  party  has  no  existence  in  your  section — gets 
no  votes  in  your  section.  The  fact  is  substantially 
true;  but  does  it  prove  the  issue?  If  it  does,  then,  in 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          401 

case  we  should,  without  change  of  principle,  begin  to 
get  votes  in  your  section,  we  should  thereby  cease  to 
be  sectional. 

"You  cannot  escape  this  conclusion;  and  yet,  are 
you  willing  to  abide  by  it?  If  you  are,  you  will  prob 
ably  soon  find  that  we  have  ceased  to  be  sectional,  for 
we  shall  get  votes  in  your  section  this  very  year.  You 
will  then  begin  to  discover,  as  the  truth  plainly  is,  that 
your  proof  does  not  touch  the  issue. 

"The  fact  that  we  get  no  votes  in  your  section,  is  a 
fact  of  your  own  making,  and  not  of  ours;  but  this 
brings  you  to  where  you  ought  to  have  started — to  a 
discussion  of  the  right  or  wrong  of  our  principle.  If 
our  principle,  put  in  practice,  would  wrong  your  sec 
tion  for  the  benefit  of  ours,  or  for  any  other  object, 
then  our  principle,  and  we  with  it,  are  sectional,  and 
are  justly  exposed  and  denounced  as  such.  Meet  us, 
then,  on  the  question  of  whether  our  principle,  put  in 
practice,  would  wrong  your  section ;  and  so  meet  it  as 
if  it  were  possible  that  something  may  be  said  on  our 
side. 

"Do  you  accept  the  challenge?  No?  Then  you 
really  believe  the,  principle  which  'our  fathers  who 
framed  the  Government  under  which  we  live, '  thought 
so  clearly  right  as  to  adopt  it  and  indorse  it  again  and 
again,  upon  their  official  oaths,  is,  in  fact,  so  clearly 
wrong  as  to  demand  your  condemnation  without  a 
moment's  consideration. 

COULD  WASHINGTON  SPEAK,  WHAT  WOULD 
HE  SAY? 

"Some  of  you  delight  to  flaunt  in  our  faces  the 
warning  against  sectional  parties  given  by  Washington 


402          LINCOLN'S   GREAT    SPEECHES. 

in  his  Farewell  Address.  Less  than  eight  years  before 
Washington  gave  that  warning,  he  had,  as  President 
of  the  United  States,  approved  and  signed  an  act  of 
Congress  enforcing  the  prohibition  of  slavery  in  the 
Northwestern  Territory,  which  act  embodied  the  policy 
of  the  Government  upon  that  subject,  up  to  and  at,  the 
very  moment  he  penned  that  warning ;  and  about  one 
year  after  he  penned  it,  he  wrote  Lafayette  that  he 
considered  that  prohibition  a  wise  measure,  expressing, 
in  the  same  connection,  his  hope  that  we  should  at 
some  time  have  a  Confederacy  of  free  States. 

"Bearing  this  in  mind,  and  seeing  that  sectionalism 
has  since  arisen  on  this  same  subject,  is  that  warning  a 
weapon  in  your  hands  against  us,  or  in  our  hands 
against  you?  Could  Washington  himself  speak,  would 
he  cast  that  blame  of  sectionalism  upon  us,  who  sus 
tain  his  policy,  or  upon  you,  who  repudiate  it?  We 
respect  that  warning  of  Washington,  and  we  commend 
it  to  you,  together  with  his  example  pointing  to  the 
right  application  of  it. 


WHAT  IS  CONSERVATISM? 

"But  you  say  you  are  conservative — eminently  con 
servative — while  we  are  revolutionary,  destructive,  or 
something  of  the  sort.  What  is  conservatism?  Is  it 
not  adherence  to  the  old  and  tried,  against  the  new  and 
untried?  We  stick  to,  contend  for,  fche  identical  old 
policy,  on  the  point  of  controversy,  which  was  adopted 
by  our  fathers  who  framed  the  Government  under 
which  we  live ;  while  you,  with  one  accord,  reject,  and 
scout,  and  spit  upon  that  old  policy,  and  insist  upon 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          403 

substituting  something  new.  True,  you  disagree 
among  yourselves  as  to  what  that  substitute  shall  be. 
You  have  considerable  variety  of  new  propositions  and 
plans,  but  you  are  unanimous  in  rejecting  and  denounc 
ing  the  old  policy  of  the  fathers. 

"Some  of  you  are  for  reviving  the  foreign  slave 
trade ;  some  for  a  Congressional  slave  code  for  the  Ter 
ritories  ;  some  for  Congress  forbidding  the  Territories 
to  prohibit  slavery  within  their  limits;  some  for  main 
taining  slavery  in  the  Territories  through  the  judi 
ciary;  some  for  the  'gur-reat  pur-rinciple'  that  'if.  one 
man  should  enslave  another,  no  third  man  should 
object,'  fantastically  called  'Popular  Sovereignty';  but 
never  a  man  among  you  in  favor  of  Federal  prohibition 
of  slavery  in  Federal  Territories,  according  to  the 
practice  of  our  fathers  who  framed  the  Government 
under  which  we  live. 

"Not  one  of  all  your  various  plans  can  show  a  prec 
edent  or  an  advocate  in  the  century  within  which  our 
Government  originated.  Consider,  then,  whether  your 
claim  of  conservatism  for  yourselves  and  your  charge 
of  destructiveness  against  us,  are  based  on  the  most 
clear  and  stable  foundations. 


WE  DENY  IT. 

"Again,  you  say  we  have  made  the  slavery  question 
more  prominent  than  it  formerly  was.  We  deny  it. 
We  admit  that  it  is  more  prominent,  but  we  deny  that 
we  made  it  so.  It  was  not  we,  but  you,  who  discarded 
the  old  policy  of  the  fathers.  We  resisted,  and  still 
resist,  your  innovation,  and  thence  comes  the  greater 


404          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

prominence  of  the  question.  Would  you  have  that 
question  reduced  to  its  former  proportions?  Go  back 
to  that  old  policy.  What  has  been  will  be  again,  under 
the  same  conditions.  If  you  would  have  the  peace  of 
the  old  times,  readopt  the  precepts  and  policy  of  the 
old  times. ,  You  charge  that  we  stir  up  insurrections 
among  your  slaves.  We  deny  it;  and  what  is  your 
proof?  Harper's  Ferry!  John  Brown!  John  Brown 
was  no  Republican ;  and  you  have  failed  to  implicate  a 
single  Republican  in  his  Harper's  Ferry  enterprise. 

"If  any  member  of  our  party  is  guilty  in  that  matter, 
you  know  it  or  you  do  not  know  it.  If  you  do  know  it, 
you  are  inexcusable  to  not  designate  the  man  and 
prove  the  fact.  If  you  do  not  know  it,  you  are  inex 
cusable  to  assert  it,  and  especially  to  persist  in  the 
assertion  after  you  have  tried  and  failed  to  make  the 
proof.  You  need  not  be  told  that  persisting  in  a 
charge  which  one  does  not  know  to  be  true  is  simply 
malicious  slander. 


"WE  DO  NOT  BELIEVE  IT." 

"Some  of  you  admit  that  no  Republican  designedly 
aided  or  encouraged  the  Harper's  Ferry  affair,  but  still 
insist  that  our  doctrines  and  declarations  necessarily 
lead  to  such  results.  We  do  not  believe  it.  We  know 
we  hold  to  no  doctrines  and  make  no  declarations 
which  were  not  held  to  and  made  by  our  fathers  who 
framed  the  Government  under  which  we  live.  You 
never  dealt  fairly  by  us  in  relation  to  this  affair. 
When  it  occurred,  some  important  State  elections  were 
near  at  hand,  and  you  were  in  evident  glee  with  the 
belief  that  by  charging  the  blame  upon  us  you  could 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          405 

get  an  advantage  of  us  in  those  elections.  The  elec 
tions  came,  and  your  expectations  were  not  fulfilled. 
Every  Republican  man  knew  that,  as  to  himself  at 
least,  your  charge  was  a  slander,  and  he  was  not  much 
inclined  by  it  to  cast  his  vote  in  your  favor.  Repub 
lican  doctrines  and  declarations  are  accompanied  with 
a  continual  protest  against  any  interference  whatever 
with  your  slaves,  or  with  you  about  your  slaves. 

"Surely  this  does  not  encourage  them  to  revolt. 
True,  we  do,  in  common  with  our  fathers  who  framed 
the  Government  under  which  we  live,  declare  our 
belief  that  slavery  is  wrong ;  but  the  slaves  do  not  hear 
us  declare  even  this.  For  anything  we  say  or  do  the 
slaves  would  scarcely  know  that  there  was  a  Repub 
lican  party.  I  believe  they  would  not,  in  fact,  gener 
ally  know  it  but  for  your  misrepresentations  of  us  in 
their  hearing.  In  your  political  contests  among  your 
selves,  each  faction  charges  the  other  with  sympathy 
with  Black  Republicanism ;  and  then,  to  give  point  to 
the  charge,  defines  Black  Republicanism  to  simply  be 
insurrection,  blood  and  thunder  among  the  slaves. 

INSURRECTION  IMPOSSIBLE. 

"Slave  insurrections  are  no  more  common  now  than 
they  were  before  the  Republican  party  was  organized. 
What  induced  the  Southampton  insurrection,  twenty- 
eight  years  ago,  in  which  at  least  three  times  as  many 
lives  were  lost  as  at  Harper's  Ferry?  You  can  scarcely 
stretch  your  very  elastic  fancy  to  the  conclusion  that 
Southampton  was  got  up  by  Black  Republicanism.  In 
the  present  state  of  things  in  the  United  States,  I  do 
not  think  a  general  or  even  a  very  extensive  slave 


4o6          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

insurrection  is  possible.  The  indispensable  concert  of 
action  cannot  be  attained.  The  slaves  have  no  means 
of  rapid  communication;  nor  can  incendiary  free  men, 
black  or  white,  supply  it.  The  explosive  materials  are 
everywhere  in  parcels;  but  there  neither  are,  nor  can 
be  supplied,  the  indispensable  connecting1  trains. 

"Much  is  said  by  Southern  people  about  the  affec 
tion  of  slaves  for  their  masters  and  mistresses ;  and  a 
part  of  it,  at  least,  is  true.  A  plot  for  an  uprising 
could  scarcely  be  devised  and  communicated  to  twenty 
individuals  before  some  one  of  them,  to  save  the  life  of 
a  favorite  master  or  mistress,  would  divulge  it.  This  is 
the  rule ;  and  a  slave  revolution  in  Hayti  was  not  an 
exception  to  it,  but  a  case  occurring  under  peculiar  cir 
cumstances.  The  gunpowder  plot  of  British  history, 
though  not  connected  with  slaves,  was  more  in  point. 
In  that  case  only  about  twenty  were  admitted  to  the 
secret ;  and  yet  one  of  them,  in  his  anxiety  to  save  a 
friend,  betrayed  the  plot  to  that  friend,  and,  by  conse 
quence,  averted  the  calamity. 

"Occasional  poisonings  from  the  kitchen,  and  open 
or  stealthy  assassinations  in  the  field,  and  local  revolt 
extended  to  a  score  or  so,  will  continue  to  occur  as  the 
natural  results  of  slavery,  but  no  general  insurrection 
of  slaves,  as  I  think,  can  happen  in  this  country  for  a 
long  time.  Whoever  much  fears,  or  much  hopes,  for 
such  an  event,  will  be  alike  disappointed. 

"In  the  language  of  Mr.  Jefferson,  uttered  many 
years  ago,  'It  is  still  in  our  power  to  direct  the  process 
of  emancipation  and  deportation  peaceably,  and  in 
such  slow  degrees,  as  that  the  evil  will  wear  off 
insensibly ;  and  their  places  be,  pari  passu,  filled  up  by 
free  white  laborers.  If,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  left  to 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          407 

force  itself  on,  human  nature  must  shudder  at  the  pros 
pect  held  up. ' 

"Mr.  Jefferson  did  not  mean  to  say,  nor  do  I,  that 
the  power  of  emancipation  is  in  the  Federal  Govern 
ment.  He  spoke  of  Virginia,  and,  as  to  the  power  of 
emancipation,  I  speak  of  the  slave-holding  States  only. 

"The  Federal  Government,  however,  as  we  insist, 
has  the  power  of  restraining  the  extension  of  the 
institution — the  power  to  insure  .that  a  slave  insurrec 
tion  shall  never  occur  on  any  American  soil  which  is 
now  free  from  slavery. 


JOHN  BROWN. 

"John  Brown's  effort  was  peculiar.  It  was  not  a 
slave  insurrection.  It  was  an  attempt  by  white  men  to 
get  up  a  revolt  among  slaves,  in  which  the  slaves 
refused  to  participate.  In  fact,  it  was  so  absurd  that 
the  slaves,  with  all  their  ignorance,  saw  plainly  enough 
that  it  could  not  succeed.  That  affair,  in  its  philos 
ophy,  corresponds  with  the  many  attempts  related  in 
history,  at  the  assassination  of  kings  and  emperors. 
An  enthusiast  broods  over  the  oppression  of  a  people 
till  he  fancies  himself  commissioned  by  Heaven  to 
liberate  them.  He  ventures  the  attempt,  which  ends 
in  little  else  than  in  his  own  execution. 

"Orsini's  attempt  on  Louis  Napoleon,  and  John 
Brown's  attempt  at  Harper's  Ferry,  were,  in  their 
philosophy,  precisely  the  same.  The  eagerness  to  cast 
blame  on  old  England  in  the  one  case,  and  on  New 
England  in  the  other,  does  not  disprove  the  sameness 
of  the  two  things. 


r. 


4oS          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

"And  how  much  would  it  avail  you  if  you  could,  by 
the  use  of  John  Brown,  Helper's  Book,  and  the  like, 
break  up  the  Republican  organization?  Human  action 
can  be  modified  to  some  extent,  but  human  nature 
cannot  be  changed.  There  is  a  judgment  and  a  feeling 
against  slavery  in  this  nation,  which  cast  at  least  a  mil 
lion  and  a  half  votes!  You  cannot  destroy  that  judg 
ment  and  feeling — that  sentiment — by  breaking  up  the 
political  organization  which  rallies  around  it. 

"You  can  scarcely  scatter  and  disperse  an  army 
which  has  been  formed  into  order  in  the  face  of  your 
heaviest  fire;  but  if  you  could,  how  much  would  you 
gain  by  forcing  the  sentiment' which  created  it  out  of 
the  peaceful  channel  of  the  ballot-box  into  some  other 
channel?  What  would  that  other  channel  probably  be? 
Would  the  number  of  John  Browns  be  lessened  or 
enlarged  by  the  operation? 


"RULE  OR  RUIN." 

"But  you  will  break  up  the  Union,  rather  than  sub 
mit  to  a  denial  of  your  Constitutional  rights. 

"That  has  a  somewhat  reckless  sound;  but  it  would 
be  palliated,  if  not  fully  justified,  were  we  proposing, 
by  the  mere  force  of  numbers,  to  deprive  you  of  some 
right,  plainly  written  down  in  the  Constitution.  But 
we  are  proposing  no  such  thing. 

"When  you  make  these  declarations,  you  have  a 
specific  and  well-understood  allusion  to  an  assumed 
Constitutional  right  of  yours,  to  take  slaves  into  the 
Federal  Territories,  and  to  hold  them  there  as  prop 
erty.  But  no  such  right  is  specifically  written  in  the 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          409 

Constitution.  That  instrument  is  literally  silent  about 
any  such  right.  We,  on  the  contrary,  deny  that  such 
a  right  has  any  existence  in  the  Constitution,  even  by 
implication. 

"Your  purpose,  then,  plainly  stated,  is,  that  you  will 
destroy  the  Government  unless  you  be  allowed  to  con 
strue  and  enforce  the  Constitution  as  you  please,  on  all 
the  points  in  dispute  between  you  and  us.  You  will 
rule  or  ruin  in  all  events.  This,  plainly  stated,  is  your 
language  to  us. 

"NOT  QUITE  SO." 

"Perhaps  you  will  say  the  Supreme  Court  has 
decided  the  disputed  constitutional  question  in  your 
favor.  Not  quite  so.  But,  waiving  the  lawyer's  dis 
tinction  between  dictum  and  decision,  the  court  has 
decided  the  question  for  you  in  a  sort  of  way.  The 
court  has  substantially  said  it  is  your  Constitutional 
right  to  take  slaves  into  the  Federal  Territories,  and  to 
hold  them  there  as  property. 

"When  I  say  the  decision  was  made  in  a  sort  of  way, 
I  mean  it  was  made  in  a  divided  court,  by  a  bare 
majority  of  the  judges,  and  they  not  quite  agreeing 
v/ith  one  another;  that  its  avowed  supporters  disagree 
with  one  another  about  its  meaning ;  and  that  it  was 
mainly  based  upon  a  mistaken  statement  of  fact — the 
statement  in  the  opinion  that  'the  right  of  property  in 
a  slave  is  distinctly  and  expressly  affirmed  in  the  Con 
stitution.  ' 

"An  inspection  of  the  Constitution  will  show  that 
the  right  of  property  in  a  slave  is  not  distinctly  and 
expressly  affirmed  in  it.  Bear  in  mind,  the  judges  do 


4io          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

not  pledge  their  judicial  opinion  that  such  right  is 
implicitly  affirmed  in  the  Constitution ;  but  they  pledge 
their  veracity  that  it  is  distinctly  and  expressly  affirmed 
there — 'distinctly' — that  is,  not  mingled  with  anything 
else — 'expressly' — that  is,  in  words  meaning  just  that, 
without  the  aid  of  any  inference,  and  susceptible  of  no 
other  meaning. 

"If  they  had  only  pledged  their  judicial  opinion,  that 
such  right  is  affirmed  in  the  instrument  by  implication, 
it  would  be  open  to  others  to  show  that,  neither  the 
word  'slave,'  nor  'slavery,'  is  to  be  found  in  the  Consti 
tution,  nor  the  word  'property'  even,  in  any  connection 
with  language  alluding  to  the  things  slave  or  slavery, 
and  that  wherever,  in  that  instrument,  the  slave  is 
alluded  to,  he  is  called  'a  person,'  and  wherever  his 
master's  legal  right  in  relation  to  him  is  alluded  to,  it 
is  spoken  of  as  'service  or  labor  due,'  as  a  'debt'  pay 
able  in  service  or  labor. 

"Also,  it  would  be  open  to  show,  by  contemporaneous 
history,  that  this  mode  of  alluding  to  slaves  and  slav 
ery,  instead  of  speaking  of  them,  was  employed  on 
purpose  to  exclude  from  the  Constitution  the  idea  that 
there  could  be  property  in  man. 

"To  show  all  this  is  easy  and  certain. 

"When  the  obvious  mistake  of  the  judges  shall  be 
brought  to  their  notice,  is  it  not  reasonable  to  expect 
that  they  will  withdraw  the  mistaken  statement,  and 
reconsider  the  conclusion  based  upon  it? 

"And  then  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  'our  fathers 
who  framed  the  Government  under  which  we  live' — 
the  men  who  made  the  Constitution — decided  this  same 
Constitutional  question  in  our  favor,  long  ago — decided 
it  without  a  division  among  themselves  about  the 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          411 

meaning  of  it  after  it  was  made,  so  far  as  any  evidence 
is  left,  without  basing-  it  upon  any  mistaken  statements 
of  facts. 

"  Under  all  these  circumstances,  do  you  really  feel 
yourself  justified  co  break  up  this  Government,  unless 
such  a  court  decision  as  yours  is  shall  be  at  once  sub 
mitted  to  as  a  conclusive  and  final  rule  of  political 
action? 

"But  you  will  not  abide  the  election  of  a  Republican 
President !  In  that  supposed  event,  you  say,  you  will 
destroy  the  Union ;  and  then,  you  say,  the  great  crime 
of  having  destroyed  it  will  be  upon  us? 

"This  is  cool.  A  highwayman  holds  a  pistol  to  my 
ear,  and  mutters  through  his  teeth,  'Stand  and  deliver, 
or  I  shall  kill  you,  and  then  you  will  be  a  murderer!' 

"To  be  sure,  what  the  robber  demanded  of  me — 
my  money — was  my  own,  and  I  had  a  clear  right  to 
keep  it ;  but  it  was  no  more  my  own  than  my  vote  is 
my  own;  and  the  threat  of  death  to  me,  to  extort  my 
money,  and  the  threat  of  destruction  to  the  Union,  to 
extort  my  vote,  can  scarcely  be  distinguished  in  prin 
ciple. 

A  FEW  WORDS  TO  THE  REPUBLICANS. 

**A  few  words  now  to  Republicans.  It  is  exceed 
ingly  desirable  that  all  parts  of  this  great  Confed 
eracy  shall  be  at  peace,  and  in  harmony,  with  one 
another.  Let  us  Republicans  do  our  part  to  have  it  so. 
Even  though  much  provoked,  let  us  do  nothing  through 
passion  and  ill-temper.  Even  though  the  Southern 
people  will  not  so  much  as  listen  to  us,  let  us  calmly 
consider  their  demand,  and  yield  to  them  if,  in  our 


4i2          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

deliberate  view  of  our  duty,  we  possibly  can.  Judging 
by  all  they  say  and  do,  and  by  the  subject  and  nature 
of  their  controversy  with  us,  let  us  determine,  if  we 
can,  what  will  satisfy  them. 

"Will  they  be  satisfied  if  the  Territories  be  uncondi 
tionally  surrendered  to  them?  We  know  they  will  not. 
In  all  their  present  complaints  against  us,  the  Terri 
tories  are  scarcely  mentioned.  Invasions  and  insur 
rections  are  the  rage  now.  Will  it  satisfy  them  if,  in 
the  future,  we  have  nothing  to  do  with  invasions  and 
insurrections?  We  know  it  will  not.  We  so  know 
because  we  know  we  never  had  anything  to  do  with 
invasions  and  insurrections;  and  yet  this  total  abstain 
ing  does  not  exempt  us  from  the  charge  and  the 
denunciation. 

4 'The  question  recurs,  what  will  satisfy  them?  Sim 
ply  this :  I  We  must  not  only  let  them  alone,  but  we 
must,  somehow,  convince  them  that  we  do  let  them 
alone.  This  we  know  by  experience  is  no  easy  task. 
We  have  been  so  trying  to  convince  them  from  the 
very  beginning  of  our  organization,  but  with  no  suc 
cess.  \  In  all  our  platform  and  speeches,  we  have  con 
stantly  protested  our  purpose  to  let  them  alone ;  but 
this  had  no  tendency  to  convince  them.'  Alike  unavail 
ing  to  convince  them  is  the  fact  that  they  have  never 
detected  a  man  of  us  in  any  attempt  to  disturb  them. 

"These  natural  and  apparently  adequate  means  all 
failing,  what  will  convince  them?  This,  and  this  only: 
Cease  to  call  slavery  wrong,  and  join  them  in  calling  it 
right.  And  this  must  be  done  thoroughly — done  in 
acts  as  well  as  words.  Silence  will  not  be  tolerated — 
we  must  place  ourselves  avowedly  with  them.  Doug 
las's  new  sedition  law  must  be  enacted,  and  enforced, 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT    SPEECHES.          413 

suppressing  all  declarations  that  slavery  is  wrong, 
whether  made  in  politics,  in  presses,  in  pulpits,  or  in 
private.  We  must  arrest  and  return  their  fugitive 
slaves  with  greedy  pleasure.  We  must  pull  down  our 
Free  State  Constitutions.  The  whole  atmosphere  must 
be  disinfected  from  all  taint  of  opposition  to  slavery, 
before  they  will  cease  to  believe  that  all  their  troubles 
proceed  from  us. 

"  I  am  quite  aware  they  do  not  state  their  case  pre 
cisely  in  this  way.  Most  of  them  would  probably  say 
to  us,  'Let  us  alone,  do  nothing  to  us,  and  say  what 
you  please  about  slavery.'  But  we  do  let  them 
alone — have  never  disturbed  them — so  that,  after 
all,  it  is  what  we  say  which  dissatisfies  them.  \They 
will  -continue  to  accuse  us  of  doing  until  we  cease 
saying. 

"I  am  also  aware  they  have  not,  as  yet,  in  terms, 
demanded  the  overthrow  of  our  Free  State  Constitu 
tions.  Yet  those  constitutions  declare  the  wrong  of 
slavery  with  more  solemn  emphasis  than  do  all  other 
sayings  against  it;  and  when  all  other  sayings  shall 
have  been  silenced,  the  overthrow  of  these  constitu 
tions  will  be  demanded,  and  nothing  be  left  to  resist 
the  demand.  It  is  nothing  to  the  contrary  that  they  do 
not  demand  the  whole  of  this  just  now.  Demanding 
what  they  do,  and  for  the  reason  they  do,  they  can 
voluntarily  stop  nowhere  short  of  this  consummation. 
Holding,  as  they  do,  that  slavery  is  morally  and  socially 
elevating,  they  cannot  cease  to  demand  a  full 
national  recognition  of  it,  as  a  legal  right  and  a  social 
blessing. 

"Nor  can  we  justifiably  withhold  this  on  any  ground, 
save  our  conviction  that  slavery  is  wrong.  If  slavery 


4i4          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

is  right,  all  words,  acts,  laws,  and  Constitutions 
against  it  are  themselves  wrong,  and  should  be  silenced 
and  swept  away.  If  it  is  right,  we  cannot  justly  object 
to  its  nationality — its  universality ;  if  it  is  wrong,  they 
cannot  justly  insist  upon  its  extension — its  enlarge 
ment.  All  they  ask  we  could  readily  grant,  if  we 
thought  slavery  right ;  all  we  ask  they  could  as  readily 
grant,  if  they  thought  it  wrong. 

"Their  thinking  it  right,  and  our  thinking  it  wrong, 
is  the  precise  fact  upon  which  depends  the  whole  con 
troversy.  Thinking  it  right,  as  they  do,  they  are  not 
to  blame  for  desiring  its  full  recognition,  as  being 
right;  but  thinking  it  wrong,  as  we  do,  can  we  yield  to 
them?  Can  we  cast  our  votes  with  their  view  and 
against  our  own?  In  view  of  our  moral,  social,  and 
political  responsibility,  can  we  do  this? 

"Wrong  as  we  may  think  slavery  is,  we  can  yet 
afford  to  let  it  alone  where  it  is,  because  that  much  is 
due  to  the  necessity  arising  from  its  actual  presence  in 
the  nation ;  but  can  we,  while  our  votes  will  prevent  it, 
allow  it  to  spread  into  the  national  Territories,  and  to 
overrun  us  here  in  these  free  States? 

"If  our  sense  of  duty  forbids  this,  then  let  us  stand  by 
our  duty  fearlessly  and  effectively.  Let  us  be  diverted 
by  none  of  those  sophistical  contrivances  wherewith  we 
are  so  industriously  plied  and  belabored — contrivances, 
such  as  groping  for  some  middle  ground  between  the 
right  and  the  wrong,  vain  as  the  search  for  a  man  who 
should  be  neither  a  living  man  nor  a  dead  man — such 
as  a  policy  of  "don't  care"  on  a  question  about  which 
all  true  men  do  care — such  as  Union  appeals,  beseech 
ing  true  Union  men  to  yield  to  disunionists,  reversing 
the  divine  rule,  and  calling,  not  the  sinners,  but  the 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          415 

righteous  to  repentance— such  as  invocations  of  Wash 
ington — imploring  men  to  unsay  what  Washington  said 
— and  undo  what  Washington  did. 

"Neither  let  us  be  slandered  from  our  duty  by  false 
accusations  against  iis,  nor  frightened  from  it  by 
menaces  of  destruction  to  the  Government,  nor  of 
dungeons  to  ourselves. 

"Let  us  have  faith  that  Right  makes  Might;  and  in 
that  faith  let  us  to  the  end  dare  to  do  our  duty  as  we 
understand  it." 


FIRST  SPEECH  AFTER  HIS  NOMINATION. 
(To  the  Committee,  Springfield,   111.,   May   19,   1860.) 

"Mr.  Chairman  and  Gentlemen  of  the  Committee: 
I  tender  to  you,  and  through  you,  to  the  Republican 
National  Convention,  and  all  the  people  represented  in 
it,  my  profoundest  thanks  for  the  high  honor  done  me, 
which  you  now  formally  announce.  Deeply  and  even 
painfully  sensible  of  the  great  responsibility  which  I 
could  wish  had  fallen  upon  some  one  of  the  far  more 
eminent  men  and  experienced  statesmen  whose  dis 
tinguished  names  were  before  the  Convention,  I  shall, 
by  your  leave,  consider  more  fully  the  resolutions  of 
the  Convention  denominated  the  platform,  and,  with 
out  unnecessary  and  unreasonable  delay,  respond  to 
you,  Mr.  Chairman,  in  writing,  not  doubting  that  the 
platform  will  be  found  satisfactory  and  the  nomination 
gratefully  accepted.  And  now  I  will  not  longer  defer 
the  pleasure  of  taking  you,  and  each  of  you,  by  the 
hand." 


416          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

PRESIDENT  LINCOLN'S  ADIEU  TO  SPRINGFIELD. 

On  Monday,  February  n,  1861,  at  8  a.  m.,  President 
Lincoln  left  Springfield.  After  exchanging  a  parting 
salutation  with  his  wife,  he  took  his  stand  on  the  plat 
form,  removed  his  hat,  and,  asking  silence,  spoke  as 
follows  to  the  multitude  that  sood  in  respectful  silence 
and  with  their  heads  uncovered : 

4 'My  Friends:  No  one,  not  in  my  position,  can 
appreciate  the  sadness  I  feel  at  this  parting.  To  this 
people  I  owe  all  that  I  am.  Here  I  have  lived  more 
than  a  quarter  of  a  century,  here  my  children  were 
born,  and  here  one  of  them  lies  buried. 

"I  know  not  how  soon  I  shall  see  you  again.  A 
duty  devolves  upon  me,  which  is,  perhaps,  greater  than 
has  devolved  upon  any  other  man  since  the  days  of 
Washington. 

11  He  never  could  have  succeeded  except  for  the  aid 
of  Divine  Providence,  upon  which  he  at  all  times 
relied.  I  feel  that  I  cannot  succeed  without  the  same 
Divine  aid  which  sustained  him;  and  in  the  same 
Almighty  Being  I  place  my  reliance  for  support,  and  I 
hope  you,  my  friends,  will  all  pray  that  I  may  receive 
that  Divine  assistance  without  which  I  cannot  succeed, 
but  with  which,  success  is  certain. 

"Again,  I  bid  you  all  an  affectionate  farewell." 
(Loud  applause  and  cries  of,  "We  will  pray  for  you.") 

Towards  the  conclusion  of  the  remarks,  himself  and 
audience  were  moved  to  tears.  His  exhortation  to 
pray  elicited  choked  exclamations  of,  "We  will  doit, 
we  will  do  it ! "  As  he  turned  to  enter  the  cars,  three 
cheers  were  given,  and  a  few  seconds  afterward  the 
train  moved  slowly  out  of  the  sight  of  the  silent 
gathering. 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          417 

SPEECH    DELIVERED     AT    CINCINNATI,    FEBRUARY 

12,   1861. 

"I  have  spoken  but  once,  before  this,  in  Cincinnati. 
That  was  a  year  previous  to  the  great  Presidential 
election.  On  that  occasion,  in  a  playful  manner,  but 
with  sincere  words,  I  addressed  much  of  what  I  said  to 
the  Kentuckians.  I  gave  my  opinion,  that  we,  as 
Republicans,  would  ultimately  beat  them  as  Demo 
crats,  but  that  they  could  postpone  that  result  longer 
by  nominating  Senator  Douglas  for  the  Presidency 
than  they  could  in  any  other  way.  They  did  not  in 
any  true  sense  of  the  word  nominate  Mr.  Douglas,  and 
the  result  has  come  certainly  as  soon  as  ever  I 
expected. 

"I  also  told  them  how  I  expected  they  would  be 
treated  after  they  should  have  been  beaten ;  and  now  I 
wish  to  call  their  attention  to  what  I  then  said  upon  the 
subject.  I  then  said:  'When  we  do  as  we  say,  beat 
you,  you  perhaps  want  to  know  what  we  will  do  with 
you.  I  will  tell  you,  as  far  as  I  am  authorized  to  speak 
for  the  opposition,  what  we  mean  to  do  with  you.  We 
mean  to  treat  you,  as  near  as  we  possibly  can,  as 
Washington,  Jefferson,  and  Madison  treated  you.  We 
mean  to  leave  you  alone,  and  in  no  way  to  interfere 
with  your  institutions ;  to  abide  by  all  and  every  com 
promise  of  the  Constitution,  and,  in  a  word,  coming 
back  to  the  original  proposition,  to  treat  you  so  far  as 
degenerate  men,  if  we  have  degenerated,  may  accord 
ing  to  the  example  of  those  noble  fathers,  Washington, 
Jefferson,  and  Madison. 

"  'We  mean  to  remember  that  you  are  as  good  as  we; 
that  there  is  no  difference  of  circumstances.  We 
mean  to  recognize  and  bear  in  mind  always  that  you 


4i8          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

have  as  good  hearts  in  your  bosoms  as  other  people,  or 
as  we  claim  to  have,  and  treat  you"  accordingly. '  Fel 
low  citizens  of  Kentucky — friends  and  brethren,  may  I 
call  you  in  your  new  position? — I  see  no  occasion  and 
feel  no  inclination  to  retract  a  word  of  this.  If  it  shall 
not  be  made  good,  be  assured  the  fault  shall  not  be 
mine. ' ' 

LINCOLN'S   SPEECH    AT    INDIANAPOLIS.    FEBRUARY 

12,  1861. 

"Fellow  Citizens  of  the  State  of  Indiana:  I  am  here 
to  thank  you  very  much  for  the  magnificent  welcome, 
and  still  more  for  the  generous  support  given  by  your 
State  to  that  political  cause  which  I  think  is  the  true  and 
just  cause  of  the  whole  country  and  the  whole  world. 

"Solomon  says  there  is  a  time  to  keep  silence,  and 
when  men  wrangle  by  the  month,  with  no  certainty  that 
they  mean  the  same  thing  while  using  the  same'  word, 
it  perhaps  were  as  well  if  they  would  keep  silence. 

"The  words  coercion  and  invasion  are  much  used  in 
these  days  and  often  with  some  temper  and  hot  blood. 

"Let  us  make  sure,  if  we  can,  that  we  do  not  mis 
understand  the  meaning  of  those  who  use  them.  Let 
us  get  the  exact  definition  of  the  words,  not  from  the 
dictionaries,  but  from  the  men  themselves,  who  cer 
tainly  deprecate  the  things  they  would  represent  by  the 
use  of  the  words.  What,  then,  is  coercion?  What  is 
invasion?  Would  the  marching  of  an  army  into  South 
Carolina,  without  the  consent  of  her  people  and  with 
hostile  intent  towards  them,  be  invasion?  I  certainly 
think  it  would ;  and  it  would  be  coercion  also  if  the  South 
Carolinians  were  forced  to  submit.  But  if  the  United 
States  should  merely  hold  and  retain  its  own  forts  and 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          419 

other  property,  and  collect  the  duty  on  foreign  im 
portations,  or  even  withhold  the  mails  from  places 
where  they  were  habitually  violated — would  any  or  all 
these  things  be  'invasion'  or  'coercion'? 

"Do  our  professed  lovers  of  the  Union,  but  who 
spitefully  resolve  that  they  will  resist  coercion  and 
invasion,  understand  that  such  things  as  these,  on  the 
part  of  the  United  States,  would  be  coercion  or  invasion 
of  a  State?  If  so,  their  ideas  of  means  to  preserve  the 
object  of  their  great  affection  would  seem  to  be  exceed 
ingly  thin  and  airy.  If  sick,  the  little  pills  of  the 
homeopathist  would  be  much  too  large  for  it  to  swal 
low.  In  their  view,  the  Union,  as  a  family  relation, 
would  seem  to  be  no  regular  marriage,  but  rather  a 
sort  of  free  love  arrangement  to  be  maintained  on 
passionate  attraction. 

"By  the  way,  in  what  consists  the  special  sacredness 
of  a  State?  I  speak  not  of  the  position  assigned  to  the 
State  in  the  Union  by  the  Constitution,  for  that,  by  the 
bond,  we  all  recognize. 

"That  position,  however,  a  State  cannot  carry  out  of 
the  Union  with  it. 

"I  speak  of  that  assumed  primary  right  of  a  State  to 
rule  all  which  is  less  than  itself,  and  to  ruin  all  that  is 
larger  than  itself. 

"If  a  State  and  a  county,  in  a  given  case,  should  be 
equal  in  extent  of  territory,  and  equal  in  number  of 
inhabitants,  in  what,  as  a  matter  of  principle,  is  the 
State  better  than  the  county?  Would  an  exchange  of 
names  be  an  exchange  of  rights  upon  principles? 
On  what  rightful  principle,  may  a  State,  being  not  more 
than  one-fiftieth  part  of  the  nation  in  soil  and  popu 
lation,  break  up  the  nation,  and  then  coerce  a  proper- 


420          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 


tionally  larger  subdivision  of  itself,  in  the  most 
arbitrary  way?  What  mysterious  right  to  play  tyrant 
is  conferred  on  a  district  of  country  with  its  people  by 
merely  calling  it  a  State?  Fellow-citizens,  I  am  not 
asserting  anything.  I  am  merely  asking  questions  for 
you  to  consider,  and  now  allow  me  to  bid  you  farewell. ' ' 


LINCOLN'S   SPEECH  AT  COLUMBUS,  OHIO,  ON   THIR 
TEENTH  OF  FEBRUARY,  1861. 

He  thus  spoke  to  the  Legislature  and  public : 
"Mr.  President,  and  Mr.  Speaker,  and  Gentlemen  of 

the  General  Assembly: 
It  is  true,  as  has  been 
said  by  the  President  of 
the  Senate,  that  a  very 
great  responsibility 
rests  upon  me  in  the 
position  to  which  the 
votes  of  the  American 
people  have  called  me. 
"I  am  deeply  sensible 
of  that  weighty  respon 
sibility.  I  cannot  but 
know  what  you  all 
know,  that  without  a 
name,  perhaps  without 
a  reason  why  I  should 

REPUBLICAN  CANDIDATES  FOR  pREsi-  have  a  name,  there  has 
DENT  AND  VICE-PRESIDENT.          fallen  upon  me  a  task 

such  as  did  not  rest  even  upon  the  Father  of  his 
Country;  and  so  feeling,  I  cannot  but  turn  and  look 
for  that  support  without  which  it  will  be  impossible 


LINCOLN   AND   HAMLIN. 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          421 

for  me  to  perform  that  great  task,  I  turn,  then, 
and  look  to  the  American  people,  and  to  that  God 
who  has  never  forsaken  them.  Allusions  have  been 
made  to  the  interest  felt  in  relation  to  the  policy 
of  the  new  Administration.  In  this  I  have  received 
from  some  a  degree  of  credit  for  having  kept  silence 
and  from  others  deprecation.  I  still  think  I  was 
right.  In  the  varying  and  repeatedly  shifting  scenes 
of  the  present,  and  without  a  precedent  which  could 
enable  me  to  judge  by  the  past,  it  has  seemed  fit 
ting,  that,  before  speaking  upon  the  difficulties  of 
the  country,  I  should  have  gained  a  view  of  the 
whole  field,  so  as  to  be  sure,  after  all — at  liberty  to 
modify  and  change  the  course  of  policy,  as  future 
events  may  make  a  change  necessary.  I  have  not 
maintained  silence  from  any  want  of  real  anxiety.  It 
is  a  good  thing  that  there  is  no  more  than  anxiety,  for 
there  is  nothing  going  wrong.  It  is  a  consoling  cir 
cumstance  that  when  we  look  out  there  is  nothing  that 
really  hurts  anybody.  We  entertain  different  views 
upon  political  questions,  but  nobody  is  suffering  in 
anything.  This  is  a  most  consoling  circumstance,  and 
from  it  we  may  conclude  that  all  we  want  is  time, 
patience,  and  a  reliance  on  that  God  who  has  never 
forsaken  this  people. 

"Fellow-citizens,   what    I   have    said,    I    have    said 
extemporaneously,  and  will  now  come  to  a  close." 


LINCOLN'S  SPEECH  IN  WASHINGTON. 

Delivered  Wednesday,  February  27,  1861,  at  his 
hotel.  On  Wednesday,  the  27th,  the  Mayor  and  Com 
mon  Council  of  the  city  waited  upon  Mr.  Lincoln  and 


422          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

tendered  him  a  welcome.     He  replied  to  them  as  fol 
lows: 

"Mr.  Mayor:  I  thank  you,  and  through  you  the 
municipal  authorities  of  this  city  who  accompany  you, 
for  this  welcome.  And  as  it  is  the  first  time  in  my  life 
since  the  present  phase  of  politics  has  presented  itself 
in  this  country,  that  I  have  said  anything  publicly 
within  a  region  of  country  where  the  institution  of 
slavery  exists,  I  will  take  this  occasion  to  say  that  I 
think  very  much  of  the  ill  feeling  that  has  existed  and 
still  exists  between  the  people  in  the  sections  from 
which  I  came  and  the  people  here,  is  dependent  upon 
a  misunderstanding  of  one  another.  I  therefore  avail 
myself  of  this  opportunity  to  assure  you,  Mr.  Mayor, 
and  all  the  gentlemen  present,  that  I  have  not  now, 
and  never  have  had,  any  other  than  as  kindly  feelings 
towards  you  as  the  people  of  my  own  section.  I  have 
not  now,  and  never  have  had,  any  disposition  to  treat 
you  in  any  respect  otherwise  than  as  my  own  neigh 
bors.  I  have  not  now  any  purpose  to  withhold  from 
you  any  of  the  benefits  of  the  Constitution,  under  any 
circumstances,  that  I  would  not  feel  myself  con 
strained  to  withhold  from  my  own  neighbors;  and  I 
hope,  in  a  word,  that  when  we  shall  become  better 
acquainted — and  I  say  it  with  great  confidence — we 
shall  like  each  other  the  more.  I  thank  you  for  the 
kindness  of  this  reception." 


FIRST  TALK  AFTER  HIS  NOMINATION. 
The  telegram  was  received  in  the  Journal  office  at 
Springfield.     Immediately  everybody  wanted  to  shake 
his  hand;  and  so  long  as  he  was  willing,  they  continued 
to  congratulate  him. 


RECEPTION   GIVEN   BY   LINCOLN. 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          425 

"Gentlemen  [with  a  twinkle  in  his  eye]:  You  had 
better  come  up  and  shake  my  hand  while  you  can; 
honors  elevate  some  men,  you  know.  .  .  .  Well, 
gentlemen,  there  is  a  little  woman  at  our  house  who  is 
probably  more  interested  in  this  dispatch  than  I  am ; 
and  if  you  will  excuse  me,  I  will  take  it  up  to  her  and 
let  her  read  it. " 


LINCOLN'S  FIRST  INAUGURAL  ADDRESS. 

Delivered  March  4,  1861,  at  Washington: 
"Fellow  Citizens  of  the  United  States:  In  compliance 
with  a  custom  as  old  as  the  Government  itself,  I  appear 
before  you  to  address  you  briefly,  and  to  take,"  in 
your  presence,  the  oath  prescribed  by  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  to  be  taken  by  the  President 
before  he  enters  on  the  execution  of  his  office. 

POSITION  STATED. 

"I  do  not  consider  it  necessary,  at  present,  for  me  to 
discuss  those  matters  of  administration  about  which 
there  is  no  special  anxiety  or  excitement.  Apprehen 
sion  seems  to  exist  among  the  people  of  the  Southern 
States  that,  by  the  accession  of  a  Republican  adminis 
tration,  their  property  and  their  peace  and  personal 
security  are  to  be  endangered.  There  has  never  been 
any  reasonable  cause  for  such  apprehension.  Indeed, 
the  most  ample  evidence  to  the  contrary  has  all  the 
while  existed,  and  been  open  to  their  inspection.  It 
is  found  in  nearly  all  the  published  speeches  of  him 
who  now  addresses  you.  I  do  but  quote  from  one  of 
those  speeches,  when  I  declare  that  'I  have  no  pur- 


426          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

pose,  directly  or  indirectly,  to  interfere  with  the  insti 
tution  of  slavery  in  the  States  where  it  exists.'  I 
believe  I  have  no  lawful  right  to  do  so.  Those  who 
nominated  and  elected  me  did  so  with  the  full  knowl 
edge  that  I  had  made  this,  and  made  many  similar 
declarations,  and  had  never  recanted  them.  And, 
more  than  this,  they  placed  in  the  platform,  for  my 
acceptance,  and  as  a  law  to  themselves  and  to  me,  the 
clear  and  emphatic  resolution  which  I  now  read : 

"  'Resolved,  That  the  maintenance  inviolate  of  the 
right  of  the  States,  and  especially  the  right  of  each 
State,  to  order  and  control  its  own  domestic  institu 
tions  according  to  its  own  judgment  exclusively,  is 
essential  to  that  balance  of  power  on  which  the  perfec 
tion  and  endurance  of  our  political  fabric  depend ;  and 
we  denounce  the  lawless  invasion  by  armed  force  of  the 
soil  of  any  State  or  Territory,  no  matter  under  what 
pretext,  as  among  the  gravest  of  crimes. ' 

"I  now  reiterate  these  sentiments;  and  in  doing  so  I 
only  press  upon  the  public  attention  the  most  conclusive 
evidence  of  which  the  case  is  susceptible,  that  the 
property,  peace,  and  security  of  no  section  are  to  be  in 
any  wise  endangered  by  the  now  incoming  administra 
tion. 

"I  add,  too,  that  all  the  protection,  which,  consist 
ently  with  the  Constitution  and  the  laws,  can  be  given, 
will  be  given  to  all  the  States  when  lawfully  demanded, 
for  whatever  cause,  as  cheerfully  to  one  section  as  to 
another. 

"There  is  much  controversy  about  the  delivering  up 
of  fugitives  from  service  or  labor.  The  clause  I  now 
read  is  as  plainly  written  in  the  Constitution  as  any 
other  of  its  provisions : 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES,          42? 

'  'No  person  held  to  service  or  labor  in  one  State 
under  the  laws  thereof,  escaping  into  another,  shall,  in 
consequence  of  any  law  or  regulation  therein,  be  dis 
charged  from  such  service  or  labor,  but  shall  be  deliv 
ered  up  on  claim  of'  the  party  to  whom  such  service  or 
labor  may  be  due. ' 

"It  is  scarcely  questioned  that  this  provision  was 
intended  by  those  who  made  it  for  the  reclaiming  of 
what  we  call  fugitive  slaves;  and  the  intention  of  the 
lawgiver  is  the  law. 

"All  the  members  of  Congress  swear  their  support 
to  the  whole  Constitution — to  this  provision  as  well  as 
any  other. 

"To  the  proposition,  then,  that  slaves  whose  cases 
come  within  the  terms  of  this  clause,  'shall  be  delivered 
up, '  their  oaths  are  unanimous.  Now,  if  they  would 
make  the  effort  in  good  temper,  could  they  not,  with 
nearly  equal  unanimity,  frame  and  pass  a  law  by  means 
of  which  to  keep  good  that  unanimous  oath? 

"There  is  some  difference  of  opinion  whether  this 
clause  should  be  enforced  by  national  or  by  State 
authority;  but  surely  that  difference  is  not  a  very 
material  one. 

"If  the  slave  is  to  be  surrendered,  it  can  be  of  little 
consequence  to  him  or  to  others  by  which  authority  it 
is  done;  and  should  any  one,  in  any  case,  be  content 
that  this  oath  shall  go  unkept  on  a  mere  inconse 
quential  controversy  as  to  how  it  shall  be  kept? 

"Again,  in  any  law  upon  this  subject,  ought  not  all 
the  safeguards  of  liberty  known  in  civilized  and 
humane  jurisprudence  to  be  introduced,  so  that  a  free 
man  be  not,  in  any  case,  surrendered  as  a  slave?  And 
might  it  not  be  well  at  the  same  time  to  provide  by  law 


4-*8          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

for  the  enforcement  of  that  clause  in  the  Constitution 
which  guarantees  that  'the  citizens  of  each  State  shall 
be  entitled  to  all  the  privileges  and  immunities  of 
citizens  in  the  several  States'? 

NO  MENTAL  RESERVATION. 

"I  take  the  official  oath  to-day  with  no  mental  reser 
vations,  and  with  no  purpose  to  construe  the  Consti 
tution  or  laws  by  any  hypercritical  rules;  and  while  I 
do  not  choose  now  to  specify  particular  acts  of  Con 
gress  as  proper  to  be  enforced,  I  do  suggest  that  it  will 
be  much  safer  for  all,  both  in  official  and  private 
stations,  to  conform  to  and  abide  by  all  those  acts 
which  stand  unrepealed,  than  to  violate  any  of  them, 
trusting  to  find  impunity  in  having  them  held  to  be 
unconstitutional. 

"It  is  seventy-two  years  since  the  first  inauguration 
of  a  President  under  our  national  Constitution.  Dur 
ing  that  period  fifteen  different  and  very  distinguished 
citizens  have  in  succession  administered  the  executive 
branch  of  the  Government.  They  have  conducted  it 
through  many  perils,  and  generally  with  great  success. 
Yet,  with  all  this  scope  for  precedent,  I  now  enter  upon 
the  same  task  for  the  brief  Constitutional  term  of  four 
years,  under  great  and  peculiar  difficulties. 

I  HOLD  THE  UNION  OF  THESE  STATES  IS 
PERPETUAL. 

**A  disruption  of  the  Federal  Union,  heretofore  only 
menaced,  is  now  formidably  attempted.  I  hold  that  in 
the  contemplation  of  universal  law  and  of  the  Constitu 
tion,  the  Union  of  these  States  is  perpetual.  Per 
petuity  is  implied,  if  not  expressed,  in  the  fundamental 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          429 

law  of  all  national  governments.  It  is  safe  to  assert 
that  no  government  proper  ever  had  a  provision  in  its 
organic  law  for  its  own  termination.  Continue  to 
execute  all  the  express  provisions  of  our  national  Con 
stitution,  and  the  Union  will  endure  forever,  it  being 
impossible  to  destroy  except  by  some  action  not  pro 
vided  for  in  the  instrument  itself. 

"Again,  if  the  United  States  be  not  a  government 
proper,  but  an  association  of  States  in  the  nature  of  a 
contract  merely,  can  it,  as  a  contract,  be  peaceably 
unmade  by  less  than  all  the  parties  who  made  it?  One 
party  to  a  contract  may  violate  it — break  it,  so  to 
speak;  but  does  it  not  require  all  to  lawfully  rescind  it? 
Descending  from  these  general  principles,  we  find  the 
proposition  that  in  legal  contemplation  the  Union  is 
perpetual,  confirmed  by  the  history  of  the  Union  itself. 

"The  Union  is  much  older  than  the  Constitution. 
It  was  formed,  in  fact,  by  the  Articles  of  Association 
in  1774.  It  was  matured  and  continued  in  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence  in  1776,  It  was  further  matured, 
and  the  faith  of  all  the  then  thirteen  States  expressly 
plighted  and  engaged  that  it  should  be  perpetual,  by 
the  Articles  of  the  Confederation  in  1778;  and,  finally, 
in  1787,  one  of  the  declared  objects  for  ordaining  and 
establishing  the  Constitution  was  'to  form  a  more  per 
fect  union. '  But  if  destruction  of  the  Union  by  one, 
or  by  a  part  only  of  the  States,  be  lawfully  possible,  the 
union  is  less  perfect  than  before,  the  Constitution  hav 
ing  lost  the  vital  element  of  perpetuity. 

"It  follows  from  these  views,  that  no  State,  upon  its 
own  mere  motion,  can  lawfully  get  out  of  the  Union ; 
that  resolves  and  ordinances  to  that  effect  are  legally 
void,  and  that  acts  of  violence  within  any  State  or 


430          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

States,  against  the  authority  of  the  United  States,  are 
insurrectionary  or  revolutionary,  according  to  circum 
stances. 

"I,  therefore,  consider  that,  in  view  of  the  Constitu 
tion  and  the  laws,  the  Union  is  unbroken,  and  to  the 
extent  of  my  ability,  I  shall  take  care,  as  the  Constitu 
tion  itself  expressly  enjoins  upon  me,  that  the  laws  of 
the  Union  shall  be  faithfully  executed  in  all  the  States. 
Doing  this,  which  I  deem  to  be  only  a  simple  duty  on 
my  part,  I  shall  perfectly  perform  it,  so  far  as  is  prac 
ticable,  unless  my  rightful  masters,  the  American 
people,  shall  withhold  the  requisition,  or  in  some 
authoritative  manner  direct  the  contrary. 

1  *  I  trust  this  will  not  be  regarded  as  a  menace,  but 
only  as  the  declared  purpose  of  the  Union  that  it  will 
constitutionally  defend  and  maintain  itself. 

"In  doing  this  there  need  be  no  bloodshed  or 
violence;  and  there  shall  be  none  unless  it  is  forced 
upon  the  national  authority. 

WHAT  SHALL  BE  DONE? 

"The  power  confided  to  me  will  be  used  to  hold, 
occupy,  and  possess  the  property  and  places  belonging 
to  the  Government,  and  collect  the  duties  and  imposts ; 
but  beyond  what  may  be  necessary  for  these  objects, 
there  will  be  no  invasion,  no  using  of  force  against  or 
among  the  people  anywhere. 

"Where  hostility  to  the  United  States  shall  be  so 
great  and  so  universal  as  to  prevent  the  competent 
resident  citizens  from  holding  federal  offices,  there  will 
be  no  attempt  to  force  obnoxious  strangers  among  the 
people  that  object.  While  the  strict  legal  right  may 
exist  in  the  Government  to  enforce  the  exercise  of 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES,          431 

these  offices,  the  attempt  to  do  so  would  be  so  irritat 
ing,  and  so  nearly  impracticable  withal,  that  I  deem  it 
best  to  forego,  for  the  time,  the  uses  of  such  offices. 

"The  mails,  unless  repelled,  will  continue  to  be  fur 
nished  in  all  parts  of  the  Union. 

"So  far  as  possible,  the  people  everywhere  shall 
iiave  that  sense  of  perfect  security  which  is  most 
favorable  to  calm  thought  and  reflection. 

"The  course  here  indicated  will  be  followed,  unless 
current  events  and  experience  shall  show  a  modifica 
tion  or  change  to  be  proper ;  and  in  every  case  and 
exigency  my  best  discretion  will  be  exercised  accord 
ing  to  the  circumstances  actually  existing,  and  with  a 
view  and  hope  of  a  peaceable  solution  of  the  national 
troubles,  and  the  restoration  of  fraternal  sympathies 
and  affections. 

"That  there  are  persons  in  one  section  or  another 
who  seek  to  destroy  the  Union  at  all  events,  and  are 
glad  of  any  pretext  to  do  it,  I  will  neither  affirm  nor 
deny.  But  if  there  be  such,  I  need  address  no  word 
to  them. 

A  WORD  TO  THOSE  WHO  LOVE  THE  UNION. 

"To  those,  however,  who  love  the  Union,  may  I  not 
speak,  before  entering  upon  so  grave  a  matter  as  the 
destruction  of  our  national  fabric,  with  all  its  benefits, 
its  memories  and  its  hopes?  Would  it  not  be  well  to 
ascertain  why  we  do  it?  Will  you  hazard  so  desperate 
a  step,  while  there  is  any  possibility  that  any  portion 
of  the  ills  you  fly  from  have  no  real  existence?  Will 
you,  while  the  certain  ills  you  fly  to  are  greater 
than  all  the  real  ones  you  fly  from — will  you  risk 
the  commission  of  so  fearful  a  mistake?  All  pro- 


432          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

fess  to  be  content  in  the  Union,  if  all  Constitutional 
rights  can  be  maintained.  Is  it  true,  then,  that  any 
right,  plainly  written  in  the  Constitution,  has  been 
denied?  I  think  not.  Happily  the  human  mind  is  so 
constituted  that  no  party  can  reach  to  the  audacity  of 
doing  this. 

"Think,  if  you  can,  of  a  single  instance  in  which 
a  plainly-written  provision  of  the  Constitution  has  ever 
been  denied.  If,  by  the  mere  force  of  numbers,  a 
majority  should  deprive  a  minority  of  any  clearly- 
written  Constitutional  right,  it  might,  in  a  moral  point 
of  view,  justify  revolution;  it  certainly  would,  if  such 
a  right  were  a  vital  one.  But  such  is  not  our  case. 

"All  the  vital  rights  of  minorities  and  of  individuals 
are  so  plainly  assured  to  them  by  affirmations  and 
negations,  guarantees  and  prohibitions  in  the  Constitu 
tion,  that  controversies  never  arise  concerning  them. 
But  no  organic  law  can  ever  be  framed  with  provision 
specifically  applicable  to  every  question  which  may 
occur  in  practical  administration.  No  foresight  can 
anticipate,  nor  any  document  of  reasonable  length  con 
tain,  express  provisions  for  all  possible  questions. 
Shall  fugitives  from  labor  be  surrendered  by  national 
or  by  State  authorities?  The  Constitution  does  not 
expressly  say.  Must  Congress  protect  slavery  in  the 
territories?  The  Constitution  does  not  expressly  say. 
From  questions  of  this  class  spring  all  our  Constitu 
tional  controversies,  and  we  divide  upon  them  into 
majorities  and  minorities. 

THE  MAJORITIES  VS.  THE  MINORITIES. 

"If  the  minority  did  not  acquiesce,  the  majority 
tuust,  or  the  Government  must  cease.  There  is  no 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          433 

alternative  for  continuing  the  Government  acquiescence 
on  the  one  side  or  the  other.  If  a  minority  in  such  a 
case  will  secede  rather  than  acquiesce,  they  make  a 
precedent,  which,  in  time,  will  ruin  and  divide  them, 
for  a  minority  of  their  own  will  secede  from  them 
whenever  a  majority  refuses  to  be  controlled  by  such  a 
minority.  For  instance,  why  may  not  any  portion  of  a 
new  confederacy  a  year  or  two  hence  arbitrarily  secede 
again,  precisely  as  portions  of  the  present  Union  now 
claim  to  secede  from  it?  All  who  cherish  disunion 
sentiments  are  now  being  educated  to  the  exact  temper 
of  doing  this.  Is  there  such  a  perfect  identity  of  inter 
ests  among  the  States  to  compose  a  new  Union  as  to 
produce  harmony  only,  and  prevent  renewed  secession? 
Plainly,  the  central  idea  of  secession  is  the  essence  of 
anarchy. 

"A  majority  held  in  check  by  Constitutional  check 
limitation,  and  always  changing  easily  with  deliberate 
changes  of  popular  opinions  and  sentiments,  is  the  only 
true  sovereign  of  a  free  people.  Whoever  rejects  it 
does,  of  necessity,  fly  to  anarchy  or  despotism.  Una 
nimity  is  impossible ;  the  rule  of  a  minority,  as  a  per 
manent  arrangement,  is  wholly  inadmissible.  So  that, 
rejecting  the  majority  principle,  anarchy  or  despotism, 
in  some  form,  is  all  that  is  left. 

"I  do  not  forget  the  position  assumed  by  some,  that 
Constitutional  questions  are  to  be  decided  by  the 
Supreme  Court,  nor  do  I  deny  that  such  decisions  must 
be  binding  in  any  case  upon  the  parties  to  a  suit,  while 
they  are  also  entitled  to  a  very  high  respect  and  con 
sideration  in  all  parallel  cases  by  all  the  other  depart 
ments  of  the  Government;  and  while  it  is  obviously 
possible  that  such  a  decision  may  be  erroneous  in  any 


434          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

given  case,  still,  the  evil  following  it,  being  limited  to 
that  particular  case,  with  the  chance  that  it  may  be 
overruled,  and  never  become  a  precedent  for  other 
cases,  can  better  be  borne  than  could  the  evils  of  a 
different  practice. 

"At  the  same  time,  the  candid  citizen  must  confess 
that,  if  the  policy  of  the  Government  upon  the  vital 
questions  affecting  the  whole  people  is  to  be  irrevocably 
feed  by  the  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court  the  instant 
Ihey  are  made,  as  in  ordinary  litigation  between  parties 
in  personal  action,  the  people  will  have  ceased  to  be 
their  own  masters,  unless  having  to  that  extent  prac 
tically  resigned  their  Government  into  the  hands  of 
that  eminent  tribunal. 

"Nor  is  there  in  this  view  any  assault  upon  the  court 
or  the  judges.  It  is  a  duty  from  which  they  may  not 
shrink,  to  decide  cases  properly  brought  before  them ; 
and  it  is  no  fault  of  theirs  if  others  seek  to  turn  their 
decisions  to  political  purposes.  One  section  of  our 
country  believes  slavery  is  right,  and  ought  to  be 
extended,  while  the  other  believes  that  it  is  wrong,  and 
ought  not  to  be  extended ;  and  this  is  the  only  sub 
stantial  dispute ;  and  the  fugitive  slave  clause  of  the 
Constitution  and  the  law  for  the  suppression  of  the 
slave  trade  are  each  as  well  enforced,  perhaps,  as  any 
law  can  ever  be  in  a  community  where  the  moral  sense 
of  the  people  imperfectly  supports  the  law  itself.  The 
great  body  of  the  people  abide  by  the  dry  legal  obliga 
tion  in  both  cases,  and  a  few  break  over  in  each. 
This,  I  think,  cannot  be  perfectly  cured,  and  it  would 
be  worse,  in  both  cases,  after  the  separation  of  the  sec 
tions  than  before.  The  foreign  slave  trade,  now 
imperfectly  suppressed,  would  be  ultimately  revived, 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          435 

without  restriction  in  one  section ;  while  fugitive  slaves, 
now  only  partially  surrendered,  would  not  be  surren 
dered  at  all  by  the  other. 

WE  CANNOT  SEPARATE. 

"Physically  speaking,  we  cannot  separate;  we  can 
not  remove  our  respective  sections  from  each  other,  nor 
build  an  impassable  wall  between  them.  A  husband 
and  wife  may  be  divorced,  and  go  out  of  the  presence 
and  beyond  the  reach  of  each  other,  but  the  different 
parts  of  our  country  cannot  do  this.  They  can  but 
remain  face  to  face,  and  intercourse,  either  amicable 
or  hostile,  must  continue  between  them.  Is  it  pos 
sible,  then,  to  make  that  intercourse  more  advantageous 
or  more  satisfactory  after  separation  than  before? 
Can  aliens  make  treaties  easier  than  friends  can  make 
laws?  Can  treaties  be  more  faithfully  enforced 
between  aliens  than  laws  can  among  friends?  Sup 
pose  you  go  to  war,  you  cannot  fight  always;  and 
when,  after  much  loss  on  both  sides,  and  no  gain  on 
either,  you  cease  fighting,  the  identical  questions  as  to 
terms  of  intercourse  are  again  upon  you. 

THE  PEOPLE. 

"This  country,  with  its  institutions,  belongs  to  the 
people  who  inhabit  it.  Whenever  they  shall  grow 
weary  of  the  existing  government,  they  can  exercise 
their  constitutional  right  of  amending,  or  their  revolu 
tionary  right  to  dismember  or  overthrow  it.  I  cannot 
be  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  many  worthy  and  patriotic 
citizens  are  desirous  of  having  the  national  Constitu 
tion  amended.  While  I  make  no  recommendation  of 
amendment,  I  fully  recognize  the  full  authority  of  the 


43<*          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

people  over  the  whole  subject,  to  be  exercised  in  either 
of  the  modes  prescribed  in  the  instrument  itself,  and  1 
should,  under  existing  circumstances,  favor  rather  than 
oppose,  a  fair  opportunity  being  afforded  the  people  to 
act  upon  it. 

I  will  venture  to  add,  that  to  me  the  convention 
mode  seems  preferable,  in  that  it  allows  amendments 
to  originate  with  the  people  themselves,  instead  of  only 
permitting  them  to  take  or  reject  propositions  orig 
inated  by  others  not  especially  chosen  for  the  purpose, 
and  which  might  not  be  precisely  such  as  they  would 
wish  either  to  accept  or  refuse.  I  understand  that  a 
proposed  amendment  to  the  Constitution  (which 
amendment,  however,  I  have  not  seen)  has  passed 
Congress,  to  the  effect  that  the  Federal  Government 
shall  never  interfere  with  the  domestic  institutions  of 
States,  including  that  of  persons  held  to  service.  To 
avoid  misconstruction  of  what  I  have  said,  I  depart 
from  my  purpose  not  to  speak  of  particular  amend 
ments,  so  far  as  to  say,  that,  holding  such  a  provision 
now  to  be  implied  Constitutional  law,  I  have  no  objec 
tions  to  its  being  made  express  and  irrevocable. 

THE  ULTIMATE  JUSTICE  OF  THE  PEOPLE. 

"The  chief  magistrate  derives  all  his  authority  from 
the  people,  and  they  have  conferred  none  upon  him  to 
fix  the  terms  for  the  separation  of  the  States.  The 
people,  themselves,  also,  can  do  this  if  they  choose; 
but  the  Executive,  as  such,  has  nothing  to  do  with  it. 
His  duty  is  to  administer  the  present  Government  as  it 
came  to  his  hands,  and  to  transmit  it  unimpaired  by 
him  to  his  successor.  Why  should  there  not  be  a 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT    SPEECHES.          437 

patient  confidence  in  the  ultimate  justice  of  the  people? 
Is  there  any  better  or  equal  hope  in  the  world?  In  our 
present  differences  is  either  party  without  faith  of 
being  in  the  right?  If  the  Almighty  Ruler  of  nations, 
with  His  eternal  truth  and  justice,  be  on  )^our  side  of 
the  North,  or  on  yours  of  the  South,  that  truth  and  that 
justice  will  surety  prevail  by  the  judgment  of  this  great 
tribunal,  the  American  people.  By  the  frame  of  the 
Government  under  which  we  live,  this  same  people 
have  wisely  given  their  public  servants  but  little  power 
for  mischief,  and  have  with  equal  wisdom  provided  for 
the  return  of  that  little  to  their  own  hands  at  very  short 
intervals.  While  the  people  retain  their  virtue  and 
vigilance,  no  administration,  by  any  extreme  wicked 
ness  or  folly,  can  very  seriously  injure  the  Government 
in  the  short  space  of  four  years. 

MY  COUNTRYMEN,  ONE  AND  ALL. 

"My  countrymen,  one  and  all,  think  calmly  and  well 
upon  this  subject.  Nothing  valuable  can  be  lost  by 
taking  time. 

"If  there  be  an  object  to  hurry  any  of  you,  in  hot 
haste,  to  a  step  which  you  would  never  take  deliber 
ately,  that  object  will  be  frustrated  by  taking  time ;  but 
no  good  can  be  frustrated  by  it. 

"Such  of  you  as  are  now  dissatisfied  still  have  the 
old  Constitution  unimpaired,  and,  on  the  sensitive 
point,  the  laws  of  your  own  framing  under  it ;  while 
the  new  administration  will  have  no  immediate  power, 
if  it  would,  to  change  either. 

"If  it  were  admitted  that  you  who  are  dissatisfied 
hold  the  right  side  in  the  dispute,  there  is  still  no  single 


43$         LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

reason  for  precipitate  action.  Intelligence,  patriotism, 
Christianity,  and  a  firm  reliance  upon  Him  who  has 
never  yet -forsaken  this  favored  land,  are  still  com 
petent  to  adjust,  in  the  best  way,  all  our  present  diffi 
culty. 

4 'In  your  hands,  my  dissatisfied  fellow-countrymen, 
and  not  in  mine,  is  the  momentous  issue  of  civil  war. 
The  Government  will  not  assail  you. 

"You  can  have  no  conflict  without  being-  yourselves 
the  aggressors.  You  have  no  oath  registered  in  heaven 
to  destroy  the  Government;  while  I  shall  have  the 
most  solemn  one  to  preserve,  protect  and  defend  it. 

"I  am  loth  to  close.  We  are  not  enemies,  but 
friends.  We  must  not  be  enemies.  Though  passion 
may  have  strained,  it  must  not  break  our  bonds  of 
affection. 

"The  mystic  cords  of  memory,  stretching  from  every 
battle-field  and  patriot  grave  to  every  living  heart  and 
hearthstone  all  over  this  broad  land,  will  yet  swell  the 
chorus  of  the  Union,  when  again  touched,  as  surely 
they  will  be,  by  the  better  angels  of  our  nature." 


REPLY   TO   THE  COMMITTEE   FROM   THE    VIRGINIA 
CONVENTION,  APRIL  20,  1861. 

"To  Hon.  Messrs.  Preston,  Stuart,  and  Randolph. — 
Gentlemen:  Asa  Committee  of  the  Virginia  Conven 
tion,  now  in  session,  you  present  me  a  preamble  and 
resolution  in  these  words : 

"  'Whereas,  In  the  opinion  of  this  Convention,  the 
uncertainty  which  prevails  in  the  public  mind  as  to  the 
policy  which  the  Federal  Executive  intends  to  pursue 
towards  the  seceded  States,  is  extremely  injurious  to 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT    SPEECHES.          439 

the  industrial  and  commercial  interests  of  the  country,  as 
it  tends  to  keep  up  an  excitement  which  is  unfavorable  to 
the  adjustment  of  the  pending  difficulties,  and  threatens 
a  disturbance  of  the  public  peace :  Therefore,  Resolved, 
That  a  committee  of  three  delegates  be  appointed  to 
wait  on  the  President  of  the  United  States,  present  to 
him  this  preamble,  and  respectfully  ask  him  to  com 
municate  to  this  Convention  the  policy  which  the 
Federal  Executive  intends  to  pursue  in  regard  to  the 
Confederate  States.' 

''In  answer,  I  have  to  say  that,  having,  at  the  begin 
ning  of  my  official  term,  expressed  my  intended  policy 
as  plainly  as  I  was  able,  it  is  with  deep  regret  and 
mortification  I  now  learn  there  is  great  and  injurious 
uncertainty  in  the  public  mind  as  to  what  the  policy  is, 
and  what  course  I  intend  to  pursue. 

"Not  having  as  yet  seen  occasion  to  change,  it  is  now 
my  purpose  to  pursue  the  course  marked  out  in  the 
Inaugural  Address.  I  commend  a  careful  considera 
tion  of  the  whole  document  as  the  best  expression  I  can 
give  to  my  purposes. 

"As  I  then  and  therein  said,  I  now  repeat,  the  power 
confided  in  me  will  be  used  to  hold,  occupy  and  possess 
property  and  places  belonging  to  the  Government, 
and  to  collect  the  duties  and  imports ;  but  beyond  what 
is  necessary  for  these  objects,  there  will  be  no  invasion, 
no  using  of  force  against  or  among  the  people  anywhere. 

"By  the  words  property  and  places  belonging  to  the 
Government,  I  chiefly  allude  to  the  military  posts  and 
property  which  were  in  possession  of  the  Government 
when  it  came  into  my  hands.  But  if,  as  now  appears 
to  be  true,  in  pursuit  of  a  purpose  to  drive  the  United 
States  authority  from  those  places,  an  unprovoked 


440          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

assault  has  been  made  upon  Fort  Sumter,  I  shall  hold 
myself  at  liberty  to  repossess  it  if  I  can,  like  places 
which  had  been  seized  before  the  Government  was 
devolved  upon  me,  and  in  any  event  I  shall,  to  the  best 
of  my  ability,  repel  force  by  force.  In  case  it  proves 
true  that  Fort  Sumter  has  been  assaulted  as  is 
reported,  I  shall,  perhaps,  cause  the  United  States 
mails  to  be  withdrawn  from  all  the  States  which  claim 
to  have  seceded,  believing  that  commencement  of 
actual  war  against  the  Government  justifies  and  pos 
sibly  demands  it.  I  scarcely  need  to  say  that  I  con 
sider  the  military  posts  and  property  situated  within 
the  States  which  claim  to  have  seceded,  as  yet  belong 
ing  to  the  Government  of  the  United  States  as  much  as 
they  did  before  the  supposed  secession. 

"Whatever  else  I  may  do  for  the  purpose,  I  shall 
not  attempt  to  collect  the  duties  and  imposts  by  any 
armed  invasion  of  any  part  of  the  country;  not 
meaning  by  this,  however,  that  I  may  not  land  a  force 
deemed  necessary  to  relieve  a  fort  upon  the  border  of 
the  country.  From  the  fact  that  I  have  quoted  a  part 
of  the  Inaugural  Address,  it  must  not  be  inferred  that 
I  repudiate  any  other  part,  the  whole  of  which  I 
re-affirm,  except  so  far  as  what  I  now  say  of  the  mails 
may  be  regarded  as  a  modification." 


PROCLAMATION  BY  THE  PRESIDENT. 

Washington,  August  16,  1861. 
By  the  President  of  the  United  States  of  America. 

A    PROCLAMATION. 

Whereas,  on  the  fifteenth  day  of  April,  the  Presi 
dent  of  the  United  States,  in  view  of  an  insurrection 


LINCOLN'S  GREAT   SPEECHES.         443 

against  the  laws,  Constitution,  and  the  Government  of 
the  United  States,  which  had  broken  out  within  the 
States  of  South  Carolina,  Georgia,  Alabama,  Florida, 
Mississippi,  Louisiana,  and  Texas,  and  in  pursuance  of 
the  provision  of  the  act  entitled  an  act  to  provide  for 
calling  forth  the  militia  to  execute  the  laws  of  the 
Union,  suppress  insurrections  and  repel  invasions,  and 
to  repeal  the  act  now  in  force  for  that  purpose,  approved 
February  28,  1795,  did  call  forth  the  militia  to  suppress 
said  insurrection  and  cause  the  laws  of  the  Union  to 
be  duly  executed,  and  the  insurgents  have  failed  to 
disperse  by  the  time  directed  by  the  President;  and 
whereas  such  insurrection  has  since  broken  out  and  yet 
exists  within  the  States  of  Virginia,  North  Carolina, 
Tennessee,  and  Arkansas ;  and  whereas  the  insurgents 
in  all  the  said  States  claim  to  act  under  authority 
thereof,  and  such  claim  is  not  disclaimed  or  repudiated 
by  the  person  exercising  the  functions  of  government, 
in  such  States  or  in  the  part  or  parts  thereof,  in  which 
combinations  exist,  nor  has  such  insurrection  been  sup 
pressed  by  said  States.  Now,  therefore,  I,  Abraham 
Lincoln,  President  of  the  United  States,  in  pursuance 
of  an  act  of  Congress,  passed  July  18,  1861,  do  hereby 
declare  that  the  inhabitants  of  the  said  States  of 
Georgia,  South  Carolina,  Virginia,  North  Carolina, 
Tennessee,  Alabama,  Louisiana,  Texas,  Arkansas, 
Mississippi,  and  Florida  (except  the  inhabitants  of  that 
part  of  Virginia  lying  west  of  the  Alleghany  Moun 
tains,  and  of  such  other  parts  of  that  State,  and  the 
other  States  herein  before  named,  as  may  maintain  a 
loyal  adhesion  to  the  Union  and  the  Constitution,  or 
may  be  from  time  to  time  occupied  and  controlled  by 
the  forces  engaged  in  the  dispersion  of  said  insurgents) 


444          LINCOLN'S    GREAT   SPEECHES. 

are  in  a  state  of  insurrection  against  the  United  States, 
and  that  all  commercial  intercourse  between  the  same 
and  the  inhabitants  thereof,  with  the  exception  afore 
said,  and  the  citizens  of  other  States  and  other  parts  of 
the  United  States  is  unlawful  and  will  remain  unlawful 
until  such  insurrection  shall  cease  or  has  been 
suppressed;  that  all  goods  and  chattels,  wares  and 
merchandise  coining  from  any  of  said  States,  with  the 
exception  aforesaid,  unto  other  parts  of  the  United 
States,  without  the  special  license  and  permission  of  the 
President  through  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  or 
proceeding  to  any  of  said  States,  with  the  exceptions 
aforesaid,  by  land  or  water,  together  with  the  vessel  or 
vehicle  carrying  the  same,  or  conveying  persons  to  or 
from  said  States;  with  said  exceptions,  will  be  forfeited 
to  the  United  States,  and  that  from  and  after  fifteen 
days  from  the  issuing  of  this  proclamation,  all  ships 
and  vessels  belonging  in  whole  or  in  part  to  any 
citizen  or  inhabitant  of  any  of  said  States,  with 
said  exceptions,  found  at  sea  or  in  any  port  of 
the  United  States,  will  be  forfeited  to  the  United 
States,  and  I  hereby  enjoin  upon  all  District  At 
torneys,  Marshals,  and  officers  of  the  revenue,  and 
of  the  military  and  naval  forces  of  the  United  States, 
to  be  vigilant  in  the  execution  of  said  act,  and  in  the 
enforcement  of  the  penalties  and  forfeitures  imposed 
or  declared  by  it,  leaving  any  party  who  may  think 
himself  aggrieved  thereby  to  his  application  to  the 
vSecretary  of  the  Treasury,  for  the  remission  of  any 
penalty  or  for  forfeiture,  which  the  said  Secretary  is 
authorized  by  law  to  grant,  if,  in  his  judgment,  the 
special  circumstances  of  any  case  shall  require  such 
remission. 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          445 

In  witness  whereof,  I  have  hereunto  set  my  hand, 
and  caused  the  seal  of  the  United  States  to  be  affixed. 
Done  in  the  city  of  Washington,  this   i6th  day  of 
August,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  1861,  and  of  the  Inde 
pendence  of  the  United  States  eighty-sixth. 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
By  the  President. 

WM.  H.  SEWARD,  Secretary  of  State. 


THE  EMANCIPATION  QUESTION  IN  MISSOURI. 

The  following  is  a  letter  from  the  President  to  Gen  • 
eral  Fremont: 

Washington,  D.  C.,  Sept.  n,  1861. 
Maj.-Gen.  John  C.  Fremont. 

Sir:  Yours  of  the  8th  instant,  in  answer  to  mine  of 
the  2d  instant,  was  just  received.  Assured  that  you, 
upon  the  ground,  could  better  judge  of  the  necessities 
of  your  position,  than  I  could  at  this  distance,  on  see 
ing  your  proclamation  of  August  soth,  I  perceived  no 
general  objection  to  it;  the  particular  clause,  however, 
in  relation  to  the  confiscation  of  property  and  the 
liberation  of  slaves  appeared  to  me  objectionable  in  its 
non-conformity  to  the  act  of  Congress,  passed  the  6th 
of  last  August,  upon  the  same  subjects,  and  hence  I 
wrote  you  expressing  my  wish  that  that  clause  should 
be  modified  accordingly.  Your  answer  just  received 
expresses  the  preference  on  your  part  that  I  should 
make  an  open  order  for  the  modification,  which  I  very 
cheerfully  do.  It  is,  therefore,  ordered  that  the  said 


446          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

clause  of  said  proclamation  be  so  modified,  held>  and 
construed  as  to  conform  with,  and  not  to  transcend, 
the  provisions  on  the  same  subject  contained  in  the  act 
of  Congress  entitled,  "An  Act  to  confiscate  property 
used  for  insurrectionary  purposes, "  approved  August 
6,  1 86 1,  and  that  said  Act  be  published  at  length  with 
this  order.  Your  obedient  servant, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


A  PROCLAMATION. 

By  the  President  of  the  United  States  of  America. 

In  pursuance  of  the  sixth  section  of  the  act  of  Con 
gress  entitled,  "An  Act  to  Suppress  Insurrection,  to 
Punish  Treason  and  Rebellion,  to  Seize  and  Confiscate 
the  Property  of  Rebels,  and  for  other  purposes," 
approved  July  17,  1862,  and  which  act  and  the  joint 
resolution  explanatory  therein,  are  herewith  published, 
I,  Abraham  Lincoln,  President  of  the  United  States, 
do  hereby  proclaim  to,  and  warn  all  persons  within  the 
contemplation  of  said  sixth  section,  to  cease  participat 
ing  in,  aiding,  countenancing,  or  abetting  the  existing 
rebellion,  or  any  rebellion  against  the  Government  of 
the  United  States,  and  to  return  to  their  allegiance  to 
the  United  States,  on  pain  of  the  forfeitures  and  seiz 
ures  as  within  and  by  said  sixth  section  provided. 

In  testimony  whereof,  I  have  hereunto  set  my  hand 
and  caused  the  seal  of  the  United  States  to  be  affixed. 

Done  at  the  city  of  Washington,  this  25th  day  of  July, 
in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          447 

and  sixty-two,  and  of  the  Independence  of  the  United 
States  the  eighty-seventh. 

By  the  President.  A.   LINCOLN. 

WM.   H.  SEWARD,  Secretary  of  State. 


EXTRACTS  UPON  WHICH  SEWARD  BASED  HIS  "IRRE 
PRESSIBLE-CONFLICT  PLATFORM." 

"In  my  opinion,  it  [the  slavery  agitation]  will  not 
cease  until  a  crisis  shall  have  been  reached  and  passed. 
"A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand." 

"I  believe  the  government  cannot  remain  perma 
nently  half  slave  and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect  the 
Union  to  be  dissolved — I  do  not  expect  the  house  to 
fall — but  I  do  expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided.  It 
will  become  all  one  thing,  or  all  the  other.  Either  the 
opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest  the  further  spread  of 
it,  and  place  it  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the 
belief  that  it  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction ;  or 
its  advocates  will  push  it  forward,  till  it  shall  become 
alike  lawful  in  all  the  States,  old  as  well  as  new — 
North  as  well  as  South. ' ' 

"I  have  always  hated  slavery,  I  think,  as  much  as 
any  Abolitionist.  I  have  been  an  old-line  Whig.  I 
have  always  hated  it,  and  I  always  believed  it  in  the 
course  of  ultimate  extinction. 

"If  I  were  in  Congress  and  a  vote  should  come  up 
whether  slavery  should  be  prohibited  in  a  new  Terri 
tory,  in  spite  of  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  I  would  vote 
that  it  should" 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

"I  nevertheless  did  not  mean  to  go  to  the  banks  of 
the  Ohio  and  throw  missiles  into  Kentucky,  to  disturb 
them  in  their  domestic  institutions.  . 

"I  believe  that  the  right  of  property  in  a  slave  is  not 
distinctly  and  expressly  affirmed  in  the  Constitution. ' ' 


A  PROCLAMATION. 

By  the  President  of  the  United  States  of  America : 

Whereas,  It  has  become  necessary  to  call  into  service, 
not  only  volunteers,  but  also  portions  of  the  military  of 
the  States  by  draft,  in  order  to  suppress  the  insurrec 
tion  existing  in  the  United  States,  and  disloyal  persons 
are  not  adequately  restrained  by  the  ordinary  processes 
of  law  from  hindering  these  measures,  and  from  giv 
ing  aid  and  comfort  in  various  ways  to  the  insurrection, 
and  as  a  necessary  measure  for  suppressing  the  same, 
all  rebels  and  insurgents,  their  aiders  and  abettors 
within  the  United  States,  and  all  persons  discouraging 
volunteer  enlistments,  resisting  military  drafts,  or 
guilty  of  any  disloyal  practice  affording  aid  and  com 
fort  to  the  rebels  against  the  authority  of  the  United 
States,  shall  be  subject  to  martial  law,  and  liable  to 
trial  and  punishment  by  courts-martial  or  military  com 
mission. 

Second,  That  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  is  suspended 
in  respect  to  all  persons  arrested,  or  who  are  now,  or 
hereafter,  during  the  rebellion,  shall  be,  imprisoned  in 
any  fort,  camp,  arsenal,  military  prison,  or  other  places 
of  confinement,  by  any  military  confinement,  or  by  the 
sentence  of  any  court-martial  or  military  commission. 
In  witness  whereof  I  have  hereunto  set  my  hand,  and 
caused  the  seal  of  the  United  States  to  be  affixed. 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES,          449 

Done  at  the  city  of  Washington,  this  twenty-fourth 
day  of  September,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thou 
sand  eight  hundred  and  sixty-two,  and  of  the  Inde 
pendence  of  the  United  States  the  eighty-seventh. 

By  the  President.  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

WM,   H.  SEWARD,  Secretary  of  State. 


A  PROCLAMATION. 

On  the  sixth  day  of  March  last,  by  a  special  message, 
I  recommended  to  Congress  the  adoption  of  a  joint 
resolution,  to  be  substantially  as  follows : 

"Resolved,  That  the  United  States  ought  to  co-oper 
ate  with  any  State  which  may  adopt  a  gradual  abolish 
ment  of  slavery,  giving  to  such  a  State,  in  its  discretion, 
compensation  for  the  inconvenience,  public  and 
private,  provided  by  such  change  of  system." 

The  resolution,  in  the  language  above  quoted,  was 
adopted  by  large  majorities  in  both  branches  of  Con 
gress,  and  no\v  stands  an  authentic,  definite,  and  solemn 
proposal  of  the  nation  to  the  States  and  people  most 
immediately  interested  in  the  subject  matter. 

To  the  people  of  the  States  I  now  nost  earnestly 
appeal. 

I  do  not  argue,  I  beseech  you  to  main  the  argument 
for  yourselves. 

You  cannot,  if  you  would,  be  blind  to  the  signs  of 
the  times.  I  beg  of  you  a  calm  and  enlarged  considera 
tion  of  their  import,  ranging,  if  it  ma-'r  be,  far  above 
personal  and  partisan  politics. 

This  proposal  makes  common  cause  for  a  common 
object,  casting  no  reproaches  upon  any 


450         LINCOLN'S  GREAT   SPEECHES. 

It  acts  not  the  Pharisee.  The  change  it  content 
plates  would  come  gently  as  the  dews  of  heaven,  not 
rending  or  wrecking  anything. 

Will  you  not  embrace  it?  So  much  good  has  not 
been  done  by  one  effort  in  all  past  times,  as  in  the 
Providence  of  God  it  is  now  your  "high  privilege  to  do. 
May  the  vast  future  not  have  to  lament  that  you  have 
rejected  it. 

By  the  President.  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

WM.   H.   SEWARD,  Secretary  of  State. 

May  19,  1862. 

EMANCIPATION  PROCLAMATION. 

Issued    by    President    Lincoln,    January    i,    1863,    at 
Washington. 

Whereas,  on  the  twenty-second  day  of  September, 
in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred 
and  sixty-two,  a  proclamation  was  issued  by  the  Presi 
dent  of  the  United  States,  containing  among  other 
things,  the  following,  to  wit: 

"That  on  the  first  day  of  January,  in  the  year  of  our 
Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty-three,  all 
persons  held  as  slaves  within  any  State  or  designated 
part  of  a  State,  the  people  whereof  shall  then  be  in 
rebellion  against  the  United  States,  shall  be  then, 
thenceforward,  and  forever  free,  and  the  Executive 
Government  of  the  United  States,  including  the  military 
and  naval  authority  thereof,  will  recognize  and  maintain 
the  freedom  of  such  persons,  and  will  do  no  act  or  acts 
to  repress  such  persons,  or  any  of  them,  in  any  efforts 
they  may  make  for  their  actual  freedom. 

"That  the  Executive  will,  on  the  first  day  of  January 


LINCOLN'S  GREAT  SPEECHES.         451 

aforesaid,  by  proclamation,  designate  the  States  and 
parts  of  States,  if  any,  in  which  the  people  thereof 
respectively  shall  then  be  in  rebellion  against  the 
United  States;  and  the  fact  that  any  State  or  the 
people  thereof  shall  on  that  day  be  in  good  faith  rep 
resented  in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  by 
members  chosen  thereto,  at  elections  wherein  a 
majority  of  the  qualified  voters  of  such  State  shall  have 
participated,  shall,  in  the  absence  of  a  strong  counter 
vailing  testimony,  be  deemed  conclusive  evidence  that 
such  State,  and  the  people  thereof,  are  not  then  in 
rebellion  against  the  United  States." 

Now,  therefore,  I,  Abraham  Lincoln,  President  of 
the  United  States,  by  virtue  of  the  power  in  me  vested 
as  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Army  and  Navy  of  the 
United  States  in  time  of  actual  armed  rebellion  against 
the  authority  and  Government  of  the  United  States, 
and  as  a  fit  and  necessary  war  measure  for  suppressing 
said  rebellion,  do,  on  the  first  day  of  January,  in  the 
year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty- 
three,  and  in  accordance  with  my  purpose  so  to  do, 
publicly  proclaimed  for  the  full  period  of  one  hundred 
days  from  the  day  first  above  mentioned,  order  and 
designate,  as  the  States  and  parts  of  States  wherein 
the  people  thereof  respectively  are  this  day  in  rebellion 
against  the  United  States,  the  following,  to- wit: 

Arkansas,  Texas,  Louisiana  (except  the  parishes 
of  St.  Bernard,  Plaquemine,  Jefferson,  St.  John,  St. 
Charles,  St.  James,  Ascension,  Assumption,  Terre 
Bonne,  Lafourche,  St.  Marie,  St.  Martin,  and  Orleans, 
including  the  City  of  New  Orleans),  Mississippi,  Ala 
bama,  Florida,  Georgia,  North  Carolina,  South  Caro 
lina  and  Virginia  (except  the  forty-eight  counties 


452         LINCOLN'S  GREAT   SPEECHES. 

designated  as  West  Virginia,  and  also  the  counties  of 
Berkeley,  Accomac,  Northampton,  Elizabeth  City, 
York,  Princess  Anne,  and  Norfolk,  including  the  cities 
of  Norfolk  and  Portsmouth),  and  which  excepted  parts 
are  for  the  present  left  precisely  as  if  this  proclamation 
were  not  issued. 

And,  by  virtue  of  the  power  and  for  the  purpose 
aforesaid,  I  do  order  and  declare  that  all  persons  held 
as  slaves  within  said  designated  States  and  parts  of 
States,  are,  and  henceforward  shall  be,  free ;  and  that 
the  Executive  Government  of  the  United  States, 
including  the  military  and  naval  authorities  thereof, 
will  recognize  and  maintain  the  freedom  of  said  per 
sons. 

And  I  hereby  enjoin  upon  the  people  so  declared  to 
be  free,  to  abstain  from  all  violence,  unless  in  neces 
sary  self-defense ;  and  I  recommend  to  them,  that  in 
all  cases,  when  allowed,  they  labor  faithfully  for  reason 
able  wages. 

And  I  further  declare  and  make  known  that  such 
persons  of  suitable  condition  will  be  received  into  the 
armed  service  of  the  United  States,  to  garrison  forts, 
positions,  stations  and  other  places,  and  to  man  vessels 
of  all  sorts  in  said  service. 

And  upon  this  act,  sincerely  believed  to  be  an  act 
of  justice,  warranted  by  the  Constitution,  upon  mili 
tary  necessity,  I  invoke  the  considerate  judgment  of 
mankind,  and  the  gracious  favor  of  the  Almighty  God. 

In  testimony  whereof,  I  have  hereunto  set  my 
name,  and  caused  the  seal  of  the  United  States  to  be 
affixed. 

Done  at  the  City  of  Washington,  this  first 
day  of  January,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          453 

[L.  S.]   thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty -three,  and 
of  the  Independence  of  the  United  States  the 
eighty-seventh. 
By  the  President.  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

WILLIAM  H.  SEWARD,  Secretary  of  State. 


<  LINCOLN'S  SPEECH  AT  GETTYSBURG. 

Delivered  at  the  dedication  of  the  Gettysburg 
National  Cemetery  on  the  Gettysburg  battle-field, 
November  19,  1863: 

"Ladies  and  Gentlemen:  Four  score  and  seven  years 
ago  our  fathers  brought  forth  upon  this  continent  a 
new  nation,  conceived  in  liberty,  and  dedicated  to  the 
proposition  that  all  men  are  created  equal.  Now  we 
are  engaged  in  a  great  civil  war,  testing  whether  that 
nation,  or  any  nation  so  conceived  and  so  dedicated, 
can  long  endure.  We  are  met  on  a  great  battle-field 
of  that  war.  We  have  come  to  dedicate  a  portion  of 
that  field  as  a  final  resting-place  for  those  who  here  gave 
their  lives  that  that  nation  might  live.  It  is  altogether 
fitting  and  proper  that  we  should  do  this. 

"But  in  a  larger  sense,  we  cannot  dedicate,  we  can 
not  consecrate,  we  cannot  hallow,  this  ground.  The 
brave  men,  living  and  dead,  who  struggled  here,  have 
consecrated  it  far  above  our  power  to  add  or  detract. 
The  world  will  little  note,  or  long  remember,  what  we 
say  here ;  but  it  can  never  forget  what  they  did  here. 

"It  is  for  us,  the  living,  rather  to  be  dedicated  here 
to  the  unfinished  work  which  they  who  fought  here 
have  thus  far  so  nobly  advanced.  It  is  rather  for  us  to 
be  here  dedicated  to  the  great  task  remaining  before 
us,  that  from  these  honored  dead  we  take  increased 


<54         LINCOLN'S   GREAT  SPEECHES. 

devotion  to  that  cause  for  which  they  gave  the  last  full 
measure  of  devotion ;  that  we  here  highly  resolve  that 
these  dead  shall  not  have  died  in  vain ;  that  this  nation, 
under  God,  shall  have  a  new  birth  of  freedom,  and  that 
the  Government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for 
the  people,  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth." 


THE  RIGHTS  OF  LABOR  (EXTRACT),  APRIL,  1864. 

"To  New  York  Workmen's  Association:  The  most 
notable  feature  of  the  disturbance  in  your  city  last 
summer  was  the  hanging  of  some  working  people  by 
other  working  people. 

"It  should  never  be  so.  The  strongest  bond  of 
human  sympathy  outside  of  the  family  relation  should 
be  one  uniting-  all  working  people  of  all  nations, 
tongues,  and  kindreds,  nor  should  this  lead  to  a  war 
on  property  or  owners  of  property. 

"Property  is  the  fruit  of  labor.  Property  is  desir 
able — is  a  positive  good  in  the  world.  That  some 
should  be  rich  shows  that  others  may  become  rich,  and 
hence  is  just  encouragement  to  industry  and  enter 
prise.  Let  not  him  who  is  houseless  pull  down  the 
house  of  another,  but  let  him  labor  diligently  and  build 
one  for  himself,  thus  by  example  assuring  himself  that 
his  own  shall  be  safe  from  violence  when  built." 


RESPONSE     TO     SERENADE     FROM     MARYLANDERS, 
.WASHINGTON,  NOVEMBER,  1864. 

"I  am  notified  that  this  is  a  compliment  paid  me  by 
the  loyal  Marylanders  resident  in  this  district. 

"I  infer  that  the  adoption  of  the  new  Constitution 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES          455 

for  the  State  furnishes  the  occasion ;  and  that  in  your 
view  the  extirpation  of  slavery  constitutes  the  chief 
merit  of  the  new  Constitution. 

-Most  heartily  do  I  congratulate  you  and  Maryland, 
and  the  nation,  and  the  world,  upon  the  event.  I 
regret  that  it  did  not  occur  two  years  sooner,  which,  I 
am  sure,  would  have  saved  the  nation  more  money  than 
would  have  met  all  the  private  loss  incident  to  the 
measure;  but  it  has  come  at  last,  and  I  sincerely  hope 
its  friends  may  realize  all  their  anticipations  of  good 
from  it,  and  that  its  opponents  may,  by  its  effect,  be 
agreeably  and  profitably  disappointed.  A  word  upon 
another  subject: 

"Something  said  by  the  Secretary  of  State  in  his 
recent  speech  at  Auburn  has  been  construed  by  some 
into  a  threat  that,  if  I  shall  be  beaten  at  the  election, 
I  will,  between  then  and  the  end  of  my  Constitutional 
term,  do  what  I  may  be  able  to  ruin  the  Government. 

''Others  regard  the  fact  that  the  Chicago  Convention 
adjourned,  not  sine  die,  but  to  meet  again,  if  called  to 
do  so,  by  a  particular  individual,  as  the  ultimatum  of 
a  purpose  that  if  the  nominee  shall  be  elected  he  will  at 
once  seize  control  of  the  Government.  I  hope  the 
good  people  will  not  allow  themselves  to  suffer  any 
uneasiness  on  either  point.  I  am  struggling  to  main 
tain  the  Government,  not  to  overthrow  it.  ,1  therefore 
say  that,  if  I  shall  live,  I  shall  remain  President  iintil 
the  4th  of  next  March.  And  whoever  shall  be  consti 
tutionally  elected  therefor  in  November,  shall  be  duly 
installed  as  President  on  the  4th  of  March,  and  that  in 
the  interval  I  shall  do  my  utmost  that  whoever  is  to 
hold  the  helm  for  the  next  voyage  shall  start  with  the 
best  possible  chance  to  save  the  ship. 


456          LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

"This  is  due  to  the  people,  both  in  principle  and 
under  the  Constitution.  Their  will,  constitutionally 
expressed,  is  the  ultimate  law  of  all. 

"If  they  should  deliberately  resolve  to  have  imme 
diate  peace,  even  at  the  loss  of  their  country,  and  their 
liberties,  I  know  not  the  power  or  the  right  to  resist 
them. 

"It  is  their  own  business,  and  they  must  do  as  they 
please  with  their  own.  I  believe,  however,  they  are 
all  resolved  to  preserve  their  country  and  their  liberty ; 
and  in  this,  in  office  or  out  of  it,  I  am  resolved  to 
stand  by  them.  I  may  add,  that  in  this  purpose  to 
save  the  country  and  its  liberties,  no  class  of  people 
seem  so  nearly  unanimous  as  the  soldiers  in  the  field 
and  the  seamen  afloat.  Do  they  not  have  the  hardest 
of  it?  Who  should  quail  when  they  do  not?  God  bless 
the  soldiers  and  seamen  and  all  their  brave  com 
manders.  "ABRAHAM  LINCOLN." 


THE  PRESIDENT  TO  LIEUTENANT-GENERAL  GRANT. 

Executive  Mansion,  Washington,  April  30,  1864. 
Lieutenant-General  Grant: 

Not  expecting  to  see  you  before  the  spring  cam 
paign  opens,  I  wish  to  express  in  this  way  my  entire 
satisfaction  with  what  you  have  done  up  to  this  time, 
so  far  as  I  understand  it. 

The  particulars  of  your  plan  I  neither  know,  nor 
seek  to  know.  You  are  vigilant  and  self-reliant,  and, 
pleased  with  this,  I  wish  not  to  obtrude  any  restraints 
or  constraints  upon  you.  While  I  am  very  anxious  that 
any  great  disaster,  or  capture  of  our  men  in  great  num- 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          457 

bers,  shall  be  avoided,  I  know  that  these  points  are 
less  likely  to  escape  your  attention  than  they  would  be 
mine.  If  there  be  anything  wanting,  which  is  within 
my  power  to  give,  do  not  fail  to  let  me  know  it. 

And  now,  with  a  brave  army  and  a  just  cause,  may 
God  sustain  you.  Yours  very  truly, 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


SECOND  NOMINATION. 

Executive  Mansion,  Washington,  June  27,  1864. 

Hon.  William  Dennison  and  Others,  a  Committee  of 
the  National  Union  Convention. 

Gentlemen:  Your  letter  of  the  i4th  instant,  formally 
notifying  me  that  I  have  been  nominated  by  the  Con 
vention  you  represent  for  the  Presidency  of  the  United 
States  for  four  years  from  the  4th  of  March  next,  has 
been  received.  The  nomination  is  gratefully  accepted, 
as  the  Resolutions  of  the  Convention — called  the  plat 
form — are  heartily  approved. 

While  .the  resolution  in  regard  to  supplanting  of 
Republican  government  upon  the  Western  continent  is 
fully  concurred  in,  there  might  be  some  misunderstand 
ing  were  I  not  to  say  that  the  position  of  the  Govern 
ment  in  relation  to  the  action  of  France  in  Mexico,  as 
assumed  through  the  State  Department  and  endorsed 
by  the  Convention,  among  the  measures  and  acts  of  the 
Executive,  will  be  faithfully  maintained  so  long  as  the 
state  of  facts  shall  leave  that  position  permanent  and 
applicable. 

I  am  especially  gratified  that  the  soldier  and  the  sea 
man  were  not  forgotten  by  the  Convention,  as  they 


458         LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

forever  must  and  will  be  remembered  by  the  grateful 
country  for  whose  salvation  they  devoted  their  lives. 

Thanking  you  for  the  kind  and  complimentary  terms 
in  which  you  have  communicated  the  nomination  and 
other  proceedings  of  the  Convention,  I  subscribe 
myself,  Your  obedient  servant, 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


LINCOLN'S  SECOND  INAUGURAL. 
Delivered  March  4,  1865,  at  Washington. 

WITH    MALICE    TOWARDS     NONE,     WITH    CHARITY    FOR    ALL. 

"Fellow-Countrymen:  At  this  second  appearing  to 
take  the  oath  of  the  Presidential  office,  there  is  less 
occasion  for  an  extended  address  than  there  was  at  the 
first.  Then,  a  statement  somewhat  in  detail  of  a  course 
to  be  pursued  seemed  very  fitting  and  proper.  Now, 
at  the  expiration  of  four  years,  during  which  public 
declarations  have  been  constantly  called  forth  on  every 
point  and  phase  of  the  great  contest  which  still  absorbs 
the  attention  and  engrosses  the  energies  of  the  nation, 
little  that  is  new  could  be  presented. 

"The  progress  of  our  arms,  upon  which  all  else 
chiefly  depends,  is  as  well  known  to  the  public  as  to 
myself;  and  it  is,  I  trust,  reasonably  satisfactory  and 
encouraging  to  all.  With  high  hope  for  the  future,  no 
prediction  in  regard  to  it  is  ventured. 

"On  the  occasion  corresponding  to  this  four  years 
ago,  all  thoughts  were  anxiously  directed  to  an  impend 
ing  civil  war.  All  dreaded  it;  all  sought  to  avoid  it. 
While  the  inaugural  address  was  being  delivered  from 
this  place,  devoted  altogether  to  save  the  Union  with- 


SECOND   INAUGURAL  ADDRESS  OF   PRESIDENT   LINCOLN. 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.         461 

out  war,  insurgent  agents  \vere  in  the  city  seeking  to 
destroy  it  without  war— seeking  to  dissolve  the  Union 
and  divide  the  effects  by  negotiation.  Both  parties 
deprecated  war;  but  one  of  them  would  make  war 
rather  than  let  the  nation  survive,  and  the  other  would 
accept  war  rather  than  let  it  perish ;  and  the  war  came. 

"One-eighth  of  the  whole  population  were  colored 
slaves,  not  distributed  generally  over  the  Union,  but 
localized  in  the  southern  part  of  it.  These  slaves  con 
stituted  a  peculiar  and  powerful  interest.  All  knew 
that  this  interest  was  somehow  the  cause  of  the  war. 
To  strengthen,  perpetuate  and  extend  this  interest, 
was  the  object  for  which  the  insurgents  would  rend  the 
Union  even  by  war,  while  the  Government  claimed  no 
right  to  do  more  than  to  restrict  the  territorial  enlarge 
ment,  of  it. 

"Neither  party  expected  for  the  war  the  magnitude 
or  the  duration  which  it  has  already  attained.  Neither 
anticipated  that  the  cause  of  the  conflict  might  cease 
with,  or  even  before,  the  conflict  itself  would  cease. 
Each  looked  for  an  easier  triumph,  and  a  result  less 
fundamental  and  astounding. 

"Both  read  the  same  Bible  and  pray  to  the  same 
God,  and  each  invokes  his  aid  against  the  other.  It 
may  seem  strange  that  any  man  should  dare  to  ask  a 
just  God's  assistance  in  wringing  their  bread  from  the 
sweat  of  other  men's  faces;  but  let  us  judge  not,  that 
we  be  not  judged.  The  prayers  of  both  could  not  be 
answered.  That  of  neither  has  been  answered  fully, 
The  Almighty  has  His  own  purposes.  'Woe  unto  the 
world  because  of  offenses,  for  it  must  needs  be  that 
offenses  come;  but  woe  to  that  man  by  whom  the 
offense  cometh.'  If  we  shall  suppose  that  American 


462         LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES. 

slavery  is  one  of  these  offenses,  which  in  the  Provi 
dence  of  God  must  needs  come,  but  which,  having  con 
tinued  through  His  appointed  time,  He  now  wills  to 
remove,  and  that  He  gives  to  both  North  and  South  this 
terrible  war  as  the  woe  due  to  those  by  whom  the 
offense  came,  shall  we  discern  therein  any  departure 
from  those  divine  attributes  which  the  believers  in  a 
living  God  always  ascribe  to  Him? 

"Fondly  do  we  hope,  fervently  do  we  pray,  that 
this  mighty  scourge  of  war  may  soon  pass  away.  Yet, 
if  God  wills  that  it  continue  until  the  wealth  piled  by 
the  bondsman's  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  unre 
quited  toil  shall  be  sunk,  and  until  every  drop  of  blood 
drawn  by  the  lash  shall  be  paid  by  another  drawn 
with  the  sword,  as  was  said  three  thousand  years  ago, 
so  still  it  must  be  said,  that  'the  judgments  of  the  Lord 
are  true  and  righteous  altogether. ' 

"With  malice  towards  none,  with  charity  for  all, 
with  firmness  in  the  right,  as  God  gives  us  to  see  the 
right,  let  us  finish  the  work  we  are  in,  to  bind  up  the 
nation's  wounds,  to  care  for  him  who  shall  have  borne 
the  battle,  and  for  his  widow  and  orphans,  to  do  all 
which  may  achieve  and  cherish  a  just  and  a  lasting- 
peace  among  ourselves  and  with  all  nations." 


PRESIDENT  LINCOLN'S  LAST  SPEECH. 

A  carefully  worded,  wise  and  memorable  production, 
delivered  Tuesday  evening,  April  n,  1865,  in  response 
to  a  serenade  at  the  White  House: 

"Fellow  Citizens:  We  meet  this  evening  not  in  sor 
row,  but  in  gladness  of  heart.  The  evacuation  of 


LINCOLN'S    GREAT    SPEECHES.          463 

Petersburg  and  Richmond,  and  the  surrender  of  the 
principal  insurgent  army,  give  hope  of  a  righteous  and 
speedy  peace  whose  joyous  expression  cannot  be 
restrained.  In  the  midst  of  this,  however,  He  from 
whom  all  blessings  flow  must  not  be  forgotten.  A  call 
for  a  national  thanksgiving  is  being  prepared,  and  will 
be  duly  promulgated.  Nor  must  those  whose  harder 
part  gives  us  the  cause  of  rejoicing  be  overlooked. 
Their  honors  must  not  be'  parceled  out  with  the  others. 
I  myself  was  near  the  front,  and  had  the  high  pleasure 
of  transmitting  much  of  the  good  news  to  you;  but  no 
part  of  the  honor,  for  plan  or  execution,  is  mine.  To 
General  Grant,  his  skillful  officers  and  brave  men,  all 
belongs.  The  gallant  navy  stood  ready,  but  was  not  in 
reach  to  take  active  part. 

"By  these  recent  successes,  the  re-inauguration  of 
the  national  authority,  reconstruction,  which  has  had  a 
large  share  of  thought  from  the  first,  is  pressed  much 
more  closely  upon  our  attention.  It  is  fraught  with 
great  difficulty.  Unlike  the  case  of  a  war  between 
independent  nations,  there  is  no  authorized  organ  for 
us  to  treat  with.  No  man  has  authority  to  give  up  the 
rebellion  for  any  other  man.  We  simply  must  begin 
with  and  mold  from  disorganized  and  discordant 
elements.  Nor  is  it  a  small  additional  embarrassment 
that  we,  the  loyal  people,  differ  among  ourselves  as  to 
the  mode,  manner  and  means  of  reconstruction. 

"As  a  general  rule,  I  abstain  from  reading  the 
reports  of  attacks  upon  myself,  wishing  not  to  be  pro 
voked  by  that  to  which  I  cannot  properly  offer  an 
answer.  In  spite  of  this  precaution,  however,  it  comes 
to  my  knowledge  that  I  am  much  censured  from  some 
supposed  agency  in  setting  up  and  seeking  to  sustain 


4o4          LINCOLN'S   GREAT    SPEECHES. 

the  new  State  Government  of  Louisiana.  In  this  I 
have  done  just  so  much,  and  no  more  than,  the  pub 
lic  knows.  In  the  annual  message  of  December,  1863, 
and  accompanying  proclamation,  I  presented  a  -plan 
of  reconstruction  (as  the  phrase  goes)  which  I  prom 
ised,  if  adopted  by  any  State,  should  be  acceptable  to, 
and  sustained  by,  the  Executive  Government  of  the 
nation.  I  distinctly  stated  that  this  was  not  the  only 
plan  which  might  possibly  be  acceptable ;  and  I  also 
distinctly  protested  that  the  Executive  claimed  no  right 
to  say  when  or  whether  members  should  be  admitted 
to  seats  in  Congress  from  such  States.  This  plan  was, 
in  advance,  submitted  to  the  then  Cabinet,  and  dis 
tinctly  approved  by  every  member  of  it.  One  of  them 
suggested  that  I  should  then,  and  in  that  connection, 
apply  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  to  the  heretofore 
excepted  parts  of  Virginia  and  Louisiana;  that  I 
should  drop  the  suggestion  about  apprenticeship  for 
freed  people,  and  that  I  should  omit  the  protest  against 
my  own  power,  in  regard  to  the  admission  of  members 
of  Congress,  but  even  he  approved  every  part  and  par 
cel  of  the  plan  which  has  since  been  employed  or 
touched  by  the  actions  of  Louisiana. 

"The  new  Constitution  of  Louisiana,  declaring 
emancipation  for  the  whole  State,  practically  applies 
the  proclamation  to  the  part  previously  excepted.  It 
does  not  adopt  apprenticeship  to  freed  people,  and  it  is 
silent,  as  it  could  not  well  be  otherwise,  about  the 
admission  of  members  of  Congress.  So  that,  as  it 
applies  to  Louisiana,  every  member  of  the  Cabinet 
fully  approved  the  plan.  The  message  went  to  Con 
gress,  and  I  received  many  commendations  of  the  plan, 
written  and  verbal ;  and  not  a  single  objection  to  it, 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          465 

from  any  professed  emancipationist,  came  to  my  knowl 
edge,  until  after  the  news  reached  Washington  that  the 
people  of  Louisiana  had  begun  to  move  in  accordance 
with  it.  From  about  July,  1862,  I  had  corresponded 
with  different  persons  supposed  to  be  interested,  seek 
ing  a  reconstruction  of  a  State  Government  for  Louisi 
ana.  When  the  message  of  1863,  with  the  plan  before 
mentioned,  reached  New  Orleans,  General  Banks  wrote 
me  he  was  confident  that  the  people,  with  his  military 
co-operation,  would  reconstruct  substantially  on  that 
plan.  I  wrote  him,  and  some  of  them,  to  try  it.  They 
tried  it,  and  the  result  is  known.  Such  only  has  been 
my  agency  in  getting  up  the  Louisiana  Government. 
As  to  sustaining  it,  my  promise  is  out,  as  before  stated. 

4 'But,  as  bad  promises  are  better  broken  than  kept, 
I  shall  treat  this  as  a  bad  promise,  and  break  it,  when 
ever  I  shall  be  convinced  that  keeping  it  is  adverse  to 
the  public  interest.  But  I  have  not  yet  been  so  con 
vinced. 

"I  have  been  shown  a  letter  on  this  subject,  sup 
posed  to  be  an  able  one,  in  which  the  writer  expresses 
regret  that  my  mind  has  not  seemed  to  be  definitely 
fixed  on  the  question  whether  the  seceded  States,  so 
called,  are  in  the  Union  or  out  of  it.  It  would,  per 
haps,  add  astonishment  to  his  regret  to  learn  that, 
since  I  have  found  professed  Union  men  endeavoring 
to  make  that  question,  I  have  purposely  forborne  any 
public  expression  upon  it.  As  appears  to  me,  that 
question  has  not  been,  nor  yet  is,  a  practically  material 
one,  and  that  any  discussion  of  it,  while  it  thus  remains 
practically  immaterial,  could  have  no  effect  other  than 
the  mischievous  one  of  dividing  our  friends. 

'•'As  yet,  whatever  it  may  hereafter  become,  that 


466          LINCOLN'S   GREAT    SPEECHES. 

question  is  bad,  as  the  basis  of  a  controversy,  and  good 
for  nothing  at  all — a  merely  pernicious  abstraction. 
We  all  agree  that  the  seceded  States,  so  called,  are  out 
of  their  proper  relation  to  the  Union,  and  that  the  sole 
object  of  the  Government,  civil  and  military,  in  regard 
to  those  States,  is  to  again  get  them  into  their  proper 
practical  relation.  I  believe  it  is  not  only  possible, 
but,  in  fact,  easier  to  do  this  without  deciding,  or  even 
considering,  whether  these  States  have  ever  been  out 
of  the  Union,  than  with  it.  Finding  themselves  safely 
at  home,  it  would  be  utterly  immaterial  whether  they 
had  ever  been  abroad.  Let  us  all  join  in  doing  the 
acts  necessary  to  restoring  the  proper  practical  rela 
tions  between  these  States  and  the  Union,  and  each 
forever  after  innocently  indulge  his  own  opinion 
whether,  in  doing  the  acts,  he  brought  the  States  from 
without  into  the  Union,  or  only  gave  them  proper 
assistance,  they  never  having  been  out  of  it. 

"The  amount  of  constituency,  so  to  speak,  on  which 
the  new  Louisiana  Government  rests  would  be  more 
satisfactory  to  all  if  it  contained  fifty,  thirty,  or  even 
twenty  thousand,  as  it  really  does.  It  is  also  unsatis 
factory  to  some  that  the  election  franchise  is  not  given 
to  the  colored  man.  I  would  myself  prefer  that  it  were 
now  conferred  on  the  very  intelligent  and  those  who 
serve  our  cause  as  soldiers.  Still,  the  question  is 
not  whether  the  Louisiana  Government,  as  it  stands, 
is  quite  all  that  is  desirable.  The  question  is,  'Will 
it  be  wiser  to  take  it  as  it  is,  or  to  reject  and  dis 
perse  it?' 

4 'Can  Louisiana  be  brought  into  proper  practical  rela 
tion  with  the  Union  sooner  by  sustaining  or  discarding 
the  new  State  Government? 


LINCOLN'S    GREAT    SPEECHES.          467 

"Some  twelve  thousand  voters  in  the  heretofore 
Slave  State  of  Louisiana  have  sworn  allegiance  to  the 
Union,  assumed  to  be  the  rightful  political  power  of 
the  State,  held  elections,  organized  a  State  Govern 
ment,  adopted  a  Free  State  constitution,  giving  the 
benefit  of  public  schools  equally  to  black  and  white, 
and  empowering  the  Legislature  to  confer  elective 
franchise  upon  the  colored  man.  The  Legislature  has 
already  voted  to  ratify  the  Constitutional  amendment 
passed  by  Congress,  abolishing  slavery  throughout  the 
nation.  These  twelve  thousand  persons  are  thus  fully 
committed  to  the  Union  and  to  perpetual  freedom  in 
the  States — committed  to  the  very  things,  and  nearly 
all  the  things,  the  nation  wants — and  they  ask  the 
nation's  recognition  and  its  assistance  to  make  good 
that  committal. 

"Now,  if  we  reject  and  spurn  them,  we  do  our 
utmost  to  disorganize  and  disperse  them.  We,  in 
effect,  say  to  the  white  men:  'You  are  worthless,  or 
worse;  we  will  neither  help  you,  nor  be  helped  by 
you.'  To  the  blacks  we  say:  'This  cup  of  liberty 
which  these,  your  old  masters,  hold  to  your  lips,  we 
will  dash  from  you,  and  leave  you  to  the  chances  of 
gathering  the  spilled  and  scattered  contents  in  some 
vague  and  undefined  when,  where  and  how. '  If  this 
course,  discouraging  and  paralyzing  both  white  and 
black,  has  any  tendency  to  bring  Louisiana  into  proper 
practical  relations  with  the  Union,  I  have,  so  far,  been 
unable  to  perceive  it.  If,  on  the  contrary,  we  recog 
nize  and  sustain  the  new  government  of  Louisiana,  the 
converse  of  all  this  is  made  true. 

"We  encourage  the  hearts  and  nerve  the  arms  of 
the  twelve  thousand  to  adhere  to  their  work,  and  argue 


468          LINCOLN'S   GREAT    SPEECHES. 

for  it,  and  proselyte  for  it,  fight  for  it,  and  feed  it,  and 
grow  it  and  ripen  it  to  a  complete  success.  The  colored 
man,  too,  seeing  all  united  for  him,  is  inspired  with 
vigilance,  and  energy,  and  daring  the  same  end. 
Grant  that  he  desires  elective  franchise,  will  he  not 
obtain  it  sooner  by  saving  the  already  advanced  steps 
towards  it,  than  by  running  backward  over  them? 
Concede  that  the  new  government  of  Louisiana  is  only 
as  to  what  it  should  be  as  the  egg  is  to  the  fowl,  we 
shall  sooner  have  the  fowl  by  hatching  the  egg  than 
by  smashing  it.  [Laughter.] 

"Again,  if  we  reject  Louisiana,  we  also  reject  one 
vote  in  favor  of  the  proposed  amendment  to  the 
National  Constitution.  To  meet  this  proposition,  it 
has  been  argued  that  no  more  than  three-fourths  of 
those  States  which  have  not  attempted  secession  are 
necessary  to  validly  ratify  the  amendment.  I  do  not 
commit  myself  against  this,  further  than  to  say  that 
such  a  ratification  would  be  questionable,  and  sure  to 
be  persistently  questioned,  while  ratification  by  three- 
fourths  of  all  the  States  would  be  unquestioned  and 
unquestionable. 

"I  repeat  the  question:  'Can  Louisiana  be  brought 
into  proper  practical  relation  with  the  Union  sooner  by 
sustaining  or  by  discarding  her  new  State  Govern 
ment?'  What  has  been  said  of  Louisiana  will  apply 
generally  to  other  States.  And  yet  so  great  peculiar 
ities  pertain  to  each  State,  and  such  important  and 
sudden  changes  occur  in  the  same  State,  and,  withal, 
so  new  and  unprecedented  is  the  whole  case,  that  no 
exclusive  and  inflexible  plan  can  safely  be  prescribed 
as  to  details  and  collaterals.  Such  exclusive  and 
inflexible  plan  would  surely  become  a  new  entangle- 


LINCOLN'S   GREAT   SPEECHES.          469 

ment.     Important  principles  may,  and  must  be,  flex 
ible. 

"In  the  present  situation,  as  the  phrase  goes,  it  may 
be  my  duty  to  make  some  new  announcement  to  the 
people  of  the  South.  I  am  considering,  and  shall  not 
fail  to  act,  when  satisfied  that  action  will  be  proper," 


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